Motorman points to serious lapses in local train safety after spotting conflicting data on a track problem complaint
Trains on the Harbour line on the CSMT route were affected after an empty local train derailed on Wednesday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
In what could be termed as a serious lapse in safety measures concerning Central Railway city commuters, the spate of two derailments of local trains on the Harbour line comes close to a very serious allegation. The allegation is of misleading and false updates being fed in the centralised system of Central Railway’s Mumbai division “becoming increasingly common” where a railway motorman on April 13 raised an alarm in a letter to the general manager just last week.
It has been alleged that defects are not being attended to properly in reality, but on the database they are being shown as attended to.
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Coincidentally, the letter was about a concern on the harbour line tracks when the motorman reported a jerk between Belapur and Seawoods stations while piloting a Panvel local train and updated the system accordingly. But the maintenance staff reverted within 23 minutes saying that on inspection all was well and it was safe to go at normal speed with nothing unusual found at the site.
The letter that the motorman sent to the management
“Subsequently, the exact spot which had been reported was upgraded with a new four-metre track with a caution order to slow down trains at 30 kmph, which continues till date. I submit that, this way, the departments have been misleading everyone by feeding false feedback and information into the database and this is a common practice being adopted by all departments, especially by EMU (local train) car shed staff. I therefore request your kind self to formulate strict norms for entering the relevant feedback into the database,” the motorman concerned stated.
Railway officials said they were investigating the issue, but the two derailments and the above complaint were two different issues as the second derailment occurred while fixing the fault of the first derailment.
Derailed!
May 1: Two wheels of an empty rake being trialled during the evening rush hour after attending the defective spot got derailed near CSMT. Local trains between CSMT and Wadala Road were badly affected.
April 29: A coach of a local train on the Harbour line derailed at CSMT. The incident occurred when a CSMT-bound train from Panvel derailed as it pulled into platform 2 at 11.35 am.
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