Won’t tolerate careless motormen, warns WR

Mumbai: Western Railway (WR) has issued warning to its motormen that administration will show zero tolerance towards those who are careless when operating Mumbai local trains. The cautionary note comes on the back of repeated incidents in the months of June and July where motormen broke signals.

Although WR administration has also been trying to understand if there were any stress triggers that resulted in these occurrences, a very stern message has been sent to the motormen lobby where they have been asked to get their ducks in a row.

An official said, “The job of a motorman, by default, is one of the most stressful jobs in the railway and has no room for error. Challenges such as a high frequency of trespassing and running trains at four-minute gaps during peak hours are a few examples.”

General Manager A.K. Gupta explained that during a review meeting held on Friday, they had asked motormen to go by the book while driving lakhs of commuters to and fro every day. “We have told motormen not to make assumptions while driving trains. Sometimes, there is confusion among motormen if they need to slow down or if there is a speed restriction at any point, which is why some issues occur.”

Asked what had been done about past cases where signals were broken, Gupta said, “Each case is being looked into individually and we are looking into what exactly happened in each one of them.”

WR runs more than 1,200 train services every day.