Year 2021-22 closed with significant achievements for North Central Railway in the field of upgrading signalling and telecommunication infrastructure. Through a total investment of about 317 crores in 2021-22, NCR stood first among all the zonal Railways in investing for technological upgradation.

NCR completes major works like completion of 108 km of automatic signalling. This is about half of the automatic signalling commissioned all over Indian Railways (218 km). It includes 74 km of new commissioning and 34 km of replacement of old signalling. In addition to it,  37 new Electronic Interlocking (EI) were commissioned at different stations which is highest ever El commissioned in a single yearand is about 9% of the total 421 EIs commissioned over Indian Railways. This includes an important feat of elimination of mechanical signalling by EI at 14 stations thereby improving safety aspects to manifold.

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Improving safety in operations further, 10 Level crossings in NCR were interlocked during 2021-22. With this, total 395 LC gates have been interlocked over NCR. Another important milestone achieved was provision of Electric gates (technically called as Power operated lifting barrier) at 17 erstwhile mechanical gates.

Making strides towards passenger amenities and convenience, a total of 121.3 km of Optical Fibre Cable was commissioned during the year. With this all the Broad Gauge network of NCR has now been provided with OFC. This brings a significant improvement in communication system.

14 stations were provided with Wi-Fi connectivity thus a total of 296 stations of NCR are now Wi-Fi enabled.

In addition, Train Display board was commissioned at 7 stations: Jhinjhak, Shikohabad, Tundla, Datia, Orai, Jhansi and Banda. A total of 37 stations of NCR are now equipped with Train Display Board. 6 more stations were provided with coach display boards in 2021-22.

About automatic signalling system: There are two major types of signalling system used in Railways. First is absolute block system, in which there is one train in between two stations at a time, and second train is permitted to enter only when first train clears the block section. The portion between two stations is called as block section.  An advancement of this system is provision of Intermediate Block Station (IBS), wherein the section is splitted into two subsections by providing an intermediate signal and thus two trains can be accommodated between two stations. Second type of signalling system is automatic signalling. In this system, signals are provided continuously after around 1-1.5 kilometers and there can be one train in between two signals. Thus practically there may be many trains in between two stations, depending upon the number of automatic signals provided. Automatic signalling increases the line capacity to a great extent as more trains can be run within the same route using the existing track. It is used in busy sections of Indian Railways.