Science & Technology Quiz: Railway Technology: Kavach, Vande Bharat and High-Speed Rail

The correct answer is A, an Automatic Train Protection system. Kavach is an electronic safety system that acts on a moving train when its driver does not: it applies the brakes if a signal at danger is being approached without braking, holds a train back from passing a red signal, and keeps two locomotives fitted with the system from closing on each other. Option B describes services run by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, which is a separate arm of the Railways altogether. Option C is wrong because a gauge is the distance between the rails, and Indian Railways uses broad gauge of 1,676 millimetres on its main network; Kavach is fitted on existing track and changes nothing about the gauge. Option D is wrong because freight tracking is done through the Freight Operations Information System, a data application, and not by a safety system fitted to locomotives and stations.

The correct answer is A, the Research Designs and Standards Organisation, usually written as RDSO. It is the research, design and standards wing of Indian Railways, has its headquarters at Lucknow, and developed Kavach in partnership with Indian manufacturers, first under the name Train Collision Avoidance System. Option B, the Centre for Railway Information Systems, builds and runs the computer systems of the Railways, such as passenger reservation and freight information, and does not design signalling hardware. Option C, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, handles catering, online ticketing and tourist trains. Option D, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India, was set up to build and manage the Eastern and Western freight corridors. All four are genuine railway bodies, which is why the question is a test of what each one actually does.

The correct answer is D, SIL-4. Safety Integrity Level is a scale of four grades used for safety related electronic systems, and level four is the most demanding, meaning the probability of a dangerous undetected failure is designed to be the lowest of all. Signalling and train protection systems on main line railways are built to this level because a single failure can cost many lives, and Kavach was certified accordingly before being adopted as the national Automatic Train Protection standard. Options A, B and C, the lower levels, are used for systems whose failure carries a smaller consequence, such as some industrial process controls and auxiliary equipment; accepting a lower level for train protection would defeat its purpose. A candidate who remembers only the phrase highest level will still get this question right, because SIL-4 is the highest of the four.

The correct answer is C, a derailment caused by a fractured rail. Kavach works on the movement of trains: it reads the position and speed of a locomotive from trackside tags, compares that with the signal and the permitted speed, and brakes the train when the driver does not. It therefore covers options A, B and D, which are all failures of driving or of spacing between trains. It has no way of knowing that a rail has cracked, that a landslide has covered the track or that a coach axle is defective, because it does not inspect the track structure or the rolling stock. Those hazards are addressed by separate measures such as ultrasonic flaw detection of rails, track recording cars and coach maintenance schedules. Examiners set this distinction precisely because Kavach is often described loosely as an anti-accident system.

The correct answer is B, the Integral Coach Factory at Chennai, which designed the train set under the project name Train 18 and rolled out the first rake. Option A, the Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala in Punjab, builds LHB coaches and other passenger stock but did not design this train set. Option C, Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in West Bengal, builds electric locomotives, and a Vande Bharat rake does not use a locomotive at all, since its propulsion equipment is distributed under the coaches. Option D, the Modern Coach Factory at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, is the newest of the coach factories and also builds LHB stock. All four are production units of Indian Railways, so the question is really asking which unit does which job, and coach design of this kind belongs to Chennai.

The correct answer is B, 2019. The first Vande Bharat Express was flagged off on 15 February 2019, after the train set had been built at the Integral Coach Factory under the name Train 18 and tested on Indian track. Option A, 2016, is the year in which Gatimaan Express began running at 160 kilometres an hour and became India's first semi-high-speed train, and a candidate who mixes the two milestones will pick it. Option C, 2021, saw further trials and orders but no first service. Option D, 2023, is the year in which the number of Vande Bharat services grew quickly across the country, which is why many candidates associate the train with that year; the expansion, however, came four years after the first run. Pairing 2016 with Gatimaan and 2019 with Vande Bharat keeps the two apart.

The correct answer is B. A Vande Bharat rake is a self-propelled electric multiple unit: the traction motors and control equipment are slung under the coaches themselves, so power is spread along the length of the train instead of being concentrated in one vehicle. The result is quicker acceleration and braking, which saves more time on a network with frequent stops than a higher top speed would, and there is no locomotive to detach and turn at the end of a run. Option A is wrong because the train draws power from the overhead line and carries no diesel engine. Option C is wrong because it runs on broad gauge like the rest of the main network. Option D describes push and pull working, in which two locomotives are used at the ends of an ordinary rake, a different arrangement that is also in use on Indian Railways but is not what makes a train set.

The correct answer is C, Japan. The corridor uses the Shinkansen system, the high-speed technology Japan has run since 1964, and the project is financed largely by a soft loan from Japan carrying a long repayment period and a low rate of interest. Option A, France, operates the TGV and is a genuine high-speed exporter, which is why it appears as a distractor. Option B, Germany, runs the InterCity Express, and German technology is present on Indian Railways in another form, the LHB coach design, which is a further reason the option looks plausible. Option D, South Korea, runs the KTX network, itself derived from French technology. The corridor runs about 508 kilometres, has a design speed of 320 kilometres an hour and includes a tunnel of about 21 kilometres of which roughly 7 kilometres pass under Thane creek.

The correct answer is B, the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited, a company set up specifically to build and later operate high-speed rail in India, with the Union Government and the Governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra as shareholders. Option A, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India, was created for a different purpose, namely the Eastern and Western freight corridors that take goods traffic off passenger routes. Option C, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, executes conventional railway projects such as doubling, electrification and new lines. Option D, formerly known as IRCON International, is a construction company of the Railways that builds projects in India and abroad and has worked on difficult Himalayan alignments. All four belong to the railway family, and the question tests which of them owns the bullet train project.

The correct answer is A, Gatimaan Express, which began running in 2016 between Delhi and Agra and became India's first semi-high-speed train at 160 kilometres an hour, a speed the Agra route could take because of its straight alignment and fenced sections. Option B, the Shatabdi Express, was introduced in 1988 as a fast day train and normally runs up to 130 kilometres an hour, so it is fast but not semi-high-speed by this definition. Option C, Tejas Express, is remembered for a different first, being the train type handed over to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation to operate, and for modern on-board features. Option D, the Rajdhani Express, was introduced in 1969 as the premier overnight train linking Delhi with State capitals, again at conventional speed. Vande Bharat later made 160 kilometres an hour the normal design speed.

The correct answer is A, the Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla rail link, the line built to connect the Kashmir valley to the rest of the Indian network. The Chenab bridge on that link stands about 359 metres above the bed of the river, higher than the Eiffel Tower, and is built as a steel arch to span the deep gorge in an earthquake prone and wind swept setting. Option B, the Konkan Railway, along the west coast is famous for its own engineering, with long tunnels and tall viaducts and the anti-collision device developed there, but not for this bridge. Option C, the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, runs across the plains of northern India where no such gorge exists. Option D, the Rishikesh to Karnaprayag line in Uttarakhand, is another Himalayan project with heavy tunnelling, and it is offered here precisely because it sounds equally mountainous.

The correct answer is B, Germany. LHB stands for Linke Hofmann Busch, the German firm whose design Indian Railways adopted at the end of the 1990s and now builds at Kapurthala and other coach factories. These coaches are made largely of stainless steel, are lighter than the older ICF coaches, ride more smoothly at high speed, and carry anti-climbing features and a centre buffer coupler so that in a collision the coaches do not ride over one another, which is the reason they are considered safer. Option A, Japan, supplies the Shinkansen technology for the high-speed corridor, not the coach design. Option C, South Korea, and option D, Russia, have supplied equipment to India in other sectors but not this coach design. Note the pattern examiners like: German coaches, Japanese bullet train and Indian train sets from Chennai.