Railway employees briefly stop workmen special train

Railway employees stopped a workmen special shuttle train briefly at Vidyavihar station on Monday evening, said officials. While the Central Railway (CR) administration said a probe was on into the cause of the incident, a Government Railway Police (GRP) official said the protesting employees were miffed over not getting sufficient place in trains started essentially for them.

The employees waiting at Vidyavihar, a suburban CR station, jumped on the tracks and stopped the Karjat-bound workmen special shuttle service to protest lack of space for railwaymen in special trains started for them, he said. The rail employees stopped the train, coming from Mumbai CSMT, before it pulled on the platform at around 5.30 pm, the GRP official said.

Central and Western Railway are operating special trains for their staffers who are on duty during the ongoing coronavirus-enforced lockdown. According to CR sources, the staff protested as a Kasara-bound train, that had left the station prior to the Karjat shuttle, was packed and hence several railway staffers could not board it.

Also, the railway employees were upset as several Maharashtra government and BMC employees travel on these special trains meant only for railway staffers without maintaining social distancing onboard them, they said. The CR claimed the Mumbai division is running three trains for staff on essential services duty for Karjat and Kasara between 4.30 pm and 5 pm.

"The emergency vehicle (train) was stopped at Vidyavihar from 5.30 to 6.13 pm," said Shivaji Sutar, chief public relations officer, CR.

He said the reason for stopping the train at Vidyavihar was being investigated. Sutar said they are going to run an additional train for railway staff on essential duty between 4.30 pm and 5 pm. The train will be operated considering the gradual restart of long-distance passenger train services and to ferry additional frontline and back-end staff, who are required to run these services, he added.