Although the situation has been the same for years now, the railway authorities have yet to take any effective measure to remedy the dangerous situation.

Sources said run-down rail-tracks and an antiquated signalling system, especially in rural areas, have forced Bangladesh Railway (BR) engineers to impose speed limits of 5 to 40 km per hour (kph) on 30 segments of railroad in Dhaka division alone to avoid major accidents. The situation is worse on branch railway tracks of regional and inter-district networks.

Meanwhile, due to a lack of maintenance and proper planning, the number of railway passengers has halved since the independence although the population has doubled by this time.

According to BR statistics, in fiscal year (FY) 1969-70, when the country's population stood at 70 million, the railways carried 72.88 million passengers. But in FY2001-02, out of an increased population of 140 million, only 38.72 million travelled by train, marking a 46.88 percent plunge in a span of 34 years. The number of passengers has decreased some more since then.

Belayet Hossain, director of BR, said the condition of the railway tracks, especially of the branch tracks, is really bad.

"The condition of the railway tracks is really bad, which is causing frequent accidents. But now the media is also talking about the problem more than before," said Belayet.

"The media criticism will help us reform the system," he added.

According to railway sources and published news reports, the condition of branch railway tracks is specially miserable with almost no gravel support for the tracks, sleepers decaying to the point of not existing at all at places, and with broken down signalling systems.

According to the reports published in newspapers, on Chittagong-Dohazari line local trains derail almost twice a week. In 11 of the 12 stations there, no phone line exists, so nobody knows when a train would come into a station until it is visible.

On Chittagong-Nazirhat line there is no supporting gravel on the 28-kilometre tracks. Sleepers are laid on bear earth with tracks mounted on them increasing the chances of accidents.

Eighty percent of the sleepers on Mymensingh-Bhairab, Mymensingh-Netrakona, and Mymensingh-Jamalpur lines have disappeared, the railway sources said adding that some tracks in the area have seen no repair since 1992.

The condition of Thakurgaon-Dinajpur line is so bad that it takes four hours to commute a distance of 102km, the sources said.

"At some places there is no sleeper, so a train has to crawl on the tracks," said an official of the railway department.

Sleepers should be installed every three feet apart but currently there are no sleepers at all even within a distance of 10 feet. All the railway equipment in the area are no less than 50 years old, the sources said.

The railway department urgently needs to repair more than 1,500km of tracks out of the country's 2,792km railway network, the department sources said.

Locomotive drivers said in the last few years it has become tremendously difficult to drive a train almost anywhere in the country. The maximum speed at Bangla Station point is set at 5kph, at Netrakona Court it is 5kph, at Kawraid 10kph, Ashuganj 16kph, Akhaura 10kph, Jagannathganj Ghat 15kph, Zia International Airport 10kph, and at Tongi 20kph.

The railway department sources said there is also a lack of fund for repairing the railway system. The department received only half the amount of fund needed for railway tracks maintenance and repair in the last five years. The department is also understaffed for carrying out maintenance work. It has a workforce of 2,917 for railroad repair and maintenance while it needs 4,565 persons to do the job, the BR sources said.

The decade between FY1995-96 and FY2004-05 saw a total of 4,968 train accidents, killing 354 persons and injuring 2,485, BR data show.

When asked, the director of the railway department said the rate of accidents is still high.

He also said they submitted a project proposal to the government for repairing the branch lines of the railway system in the country.

"The project is awaiting government approval," he said.

Besides, Asian Development Bank (ADB) is likely to give funds for reformation of the railway sector. A feasibility study is underway, the draft report of which has already been submitted.