Vadodara: In a major boost to railway safety, Western Railway (WR) on Monday commissioned the Kavach 4.0 system on the Vadodara-Nagda section, which means that most of the Mumbai–New Delhi main corridor is now under the train protection system. WR general manager Pradeep Kumar flagged off a Kavach-enabled special train from Vadodara station in the presence of senior railway officials. With this commissioning, 559.5km of the 693km under WR on the Mumbai-New Delhi corridor — under Mission Raftaar — is equipped with the indigenous train protection system, covering most of this high-density route. Officials said under the Vadodara-Nagda section, Kavach has been operationalized on 224.51km, including Vadodara to Mangal Mahudi (122.5 km) and Panchpipliya to Nagda (102.01 km). Work on the remaining Mangal Mahudi-Panchpipliya stretch is underway and is expected to be completed soon along with automatic signalling. In the 2025-26 financial year, WR commissioned Kavach on a total of 659.5km of the route. In Jan 2026, the system was made operational on the Vadodara-Virar section, and it has now been extended up to Nagda via Godhra. Kavach, an advanced and indigenously developed train protection system, is designed to enhance operational safety by minimizing human error. It acts as an additional safeguard against incidents such as Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD). The execution of the project on the Vadodara-Nagda section involved extensive planning and deployment. Over 6,000 RFID tags were installed along the tracks, while continuous radio communication was established across 26 stations and 13 block sections, along with locomotives. A network of 39 radio towers was set up, supported by nearly 600km of optical fibre cable laid in both directions. Kavach equipment has been integrated with existing signalling systems at stations, block sections and level crossing gates. Locomotives have also been fitted with onboard Kavach devices, followed by comprehensive trials and system testing. Railway officials highlighted that compared to European systems such as ETCS, Kavach is significantly more cost-effective. So far, it has been deployed in WAP-7, WAG-9 and WAP-5 locomotives, with plans to extend the system to other classes. A total of 364 locomotives on WR have already been equipped with Kavach.
