Railway Board reviews safety lapses with S&T union after 4 signal staff run over by trains in a week

New Delhi: The Railway Board reviewed the safety of track and signal staff after four technicians were mowed down by trains in different rail divisions within a week.

While one signal maintainer succumbed to grievous injuries in hospital, three died on the spot after being run over by speeding trains when they were attending various faults in the signalling system last week between October 7 and 11.

The Railway Board reviewed the safety lapses with the Indian Railways Signal and Telecom Maintainers' Union (IRSTMU) were also present while the review was carried out.

“A senior railway official from the Railway Board spoke to me on October 12 and expressed concern over the frequent running over of our staff. I apprised him of all our problems, lack of equipment such as walkie-talkie, shortage of staff, pending demand of night duty failure rectification gang and various other issues,” said Alok Chandra Prakash, general secretary of the IRSTMU.

The most recent death was on October 12 when senior technician Pawan Kumar Paswan was mowed down by an express train while he was rectifying the fault in the level crossing gate in Ragia Division in Assam.

A day before, on October 11, a young electrical signal maintainer Anil Kumar was run over by Ghaziabad EMU Express while working on a live track near Mitawali station in Prayagraj Division in Uttar Pradesh.

“On September 17, one of the signal staff from the Adra rail division suffered grievous injury by train when he was repairing the track circuit. He succumbed to injuries on October 8,” a railway official said.

In another accident on October 7, Akash Goswami died on the spot when he came under Rani Kamalapati Jan Shatabdi Express while working on live track in Bhopal Rail Division.

Office bearers of IRSTMU blamed railway administration and demanded at least a team of three staff to attend any defect -- two of them would be in the field and one would help in tracking the movements of the train so that the working staff can be alerted on time.

They said that due to shortage of staff, one or two has to attend to the failure, and due to work stress and various other reasons, cannot keep a watch on trains.

When one train is coming from the UP direction and the staff is busy working on the Down line, the sound of the UP train is so loud that one cannot make out another train coming on the Down line at the same time and run over happens, they said.

“Besides, we have also demanded the distribution of walkie-talkie to all the members of each team so that messages can be circulated quickly and timely,” IRSTMU national president Naveen Kumar said.

Kumar also highlighted the menace of mobile phone use by officials to communicate with signal staff working on live track condition which often lead to distraction and become a cause of their traffic death.

“When one or two staff attend a failure on the track, the station master or other officials call on the mobile phone to find out the progress of rectification work. In many cases, staff were run over by trains while attending such calls,” Kumar said.

He added, "That is the reason we have demanded walkie-talkie and an additional member who can attend these messages along with keeping our working staff on alert of train movements." Union officer bearers also demanded a complete ban to be imposed on the use of devices such as ear buds, earphones or headphones.

"Our demand for a night duty failure rectification gang in which a group of signal staff should go on live track for rectification work is long-pending and we want the Railway Board to take a quick decision," Prakash said.

“I also want to raise our long-pending demand for ‘Risk and Hardship allowance' which has been pending with the Finance Ministry for several months. We have conveyed all our concerns to the Railway Board. Now, we are expecting some affirmation action on the part of the Board,” he added.