Narrow escape for MEMU train: Railway pointsman suspended
A day after a potential mishap at Nilagiri Road railway station in Odisha's Balasore was averted due to the alertness of the loco pilot of the Bhadrak-Balasore MEMU train, the Divisional Railway Manager of Kharagpur Division of South Eastern Railway suspended the station manager and pointsman on Wednesday.
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Bhubaneswar: A day after a potential mishap at Nilagiri Road railway station in Odisha's Balasore was averted due to the alertness of the loco pilot of the Bhadrak-Balasore MEMU train, the Divisional Railway Manager of Kharagpur Division of South Eastern Railway suspended the station manager and pointsman on Wednesday.
A senior railway official informed that Nilgiri Road Station Manager Subas Sethy and Pointsman Sheikh Mohammad Khalip had been suspended for dereliction of duty.
With the tragic triple crash, which claimed the lives of 293 people, still fresh in the public mind, the sudden reverse movement of the MEMU train around 1 p.m. on Tuesday after the loco pilot applied brakes after noticing that the locomotive had entered the down loop line, where maintenance work was underway, even though the signal for the mainline was clear, caused panic among the passengers. The station is only 15 kilometers from Bahanaga, which experienced one of the worst rail accidents in two decades last month.
After the tracks were repaired, the MEMU left Nilagiri station, and passengers breathed a sigh of relief when they arrived in Balasore.
According to railway officials, the train was moving at 7-8 kmph, so the chances of an accident were low. The loco pilot agreed, saying that while derailment was unlikely, the tracks could have been damaged if the train had continued.
However, train services on this line were disrupted for more than two hours as a result of the incident.
