Bangladesh Railway has a network of about 3,500 km and has attracted significant investment over the past decade and a half. Yet rescue capabilities after accidents have long been neglected. The operator has only a handful of relief trains, meaning that even minor derailments cause long delays in clearing the line and resuming normal services.
The railway is divided into four divisions across two zones. More than 350 trains run daily to districts around the country. Each zone has three rescue trains, six in total. Because there are so few, a derailment can mean a wait of several hours for equipment to arrive, disrupting services nationwide and often exacerbating casualties.
According to railway officials, the east zone keeps heavy relief trains in Dhaka, Akhaura and Chattogram. In the western zone, such trains are based at Ishwardi, Parbatipur and Khulna. If an accident occurs on any route away from these main stations or sections, the wait for a relief train is between three and six hours. Railway officials themselves acknowledge this as a major shortcoming in the modernisation of the country’s rail system.
In the most recent serious incident, the Nilsagar Express inter-city train derailed at Adamdighi in Bogura on Wednesday. It then took 22 hours to complete the rescue operation and restore train movements. Those involved in the sector say the episode exposed how investment of BDT 1.5 trillion in infrastructure over 15 years has bypassed the modernisation of accident response.
According to railway data, after the Bogura derailment was reported, it took five hours for a rescue train to reach the site. Two relief trains from Ishwardi and Parbatipur then needed more than 15 hours to re-rail the nine carriages that had jumped the track. The line was finally cleared on Thursday at 11.20 am, allowing services in the western zone to resume.
Only three days before Eid, the 22-hour suspension stranded thousands of passengers heading home. At least four inter-city trains were cancelled over the two days following the crash. The Dhaka-bound Nilsagar Express and Simanta Express were taken out of service on Wednesday, followed by the Ekota and Drutojan Express on Thursday. More than one hundred trains failed to depart on schedule because of the disruption.
Farid Ahmed, general manager of the western zone, told Bonik Barta that the accident, coming just days before Eid, had forced some cancellations. Admitting delays in the arrival of rescue cranes (trains) from Ishwardi and Parbatipur, he said: “It took time to get them there. Then, because nine carriages had derailed, the recovery process also took time. Still, we managed to get train services started for passengers before Eid.”
The railway authorities said that although derailments are a routine type of accident, the lack of readily available relief trains or equipment means that even such incidents lead to lengthy clear-up operations. Despite major investment, a shortage of this machinery persists.
Bangladesh Railway’s Director General Afzal Hossain concurred when asked about the shortfall. “We have six large relief trains, plus several smaller cranes,” he told Bonik Barta. “But a major accident can’t be cleared quickly without a big relief train. We’re now drawing up a project to buy four more large recovery trains.” If government or donor funding is secured, he added, they would be stationed at Rajshahi, Lalmonirhat, Bhanga/Rajbari, Cox’s Bazar and Kulaura to ensure smooth train operations.
According to railway data, smaller cranes are already available in the eastern zone at Akhaura, Mymensingh and Kulaura, while the western zone has some light equipment. The existing fleet of large relief trains is also ageing, which adds to the time needed to complete recovery work once they finally reach the scene.