A joint meeting of the Railways and Forest Department officials will be soon convened to discuss ways to prevent the deaths of elephant on railway track by speeding trains.

The decision follows an inspection of the 25 Km stretch of railway track by a team of officials led by Chief Wild Life Warden of Tamil Nadu. The track has become notorious for such tragic deaths in recent times. Nearly 10 elephants were killed in the last nine years by trains in the stretch between Palakkad in Kerala and Podanur in Tamil Nadu. The most recent death was of a lactating elephant near Madukkarai, which was hit by an over-speeding Kochiveli Express.

The Forest Department had put a caution board (for the engine drivers) at the corridor, after a particularly gruesome midnight accident near Kurumbapalayam on February 4, 2008, when the same Kochiveli Express mowed down three elephants, including a pregnant one, on the same track.

Suggestions like putting up heavy metal fencing along with the railway track on the stretch, digging trenches and limiting the speed of the trains, will be discussed at the meeting, sources at the forest department said.