Dinesh Kamath's news 'Accidents on tracks worry railway authorities' that was published in Newsband

Accidents on tracks worry railway authorities

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Crossing of tracks by railway commuters has proved to be a dangerous exercise considering the fact that 138 persons lost their lives while crossing the railway tracks in spite of railway authorities time-and-again warnings that such an act is against the law.

One cannot blame the motormen of the railway trains since the victims happen to cross the tracks all of a sudden and these motormen fail to stop the train in spite of their applying brakes the moment they spot the victim. At Vashi railway tracks itself there has been a large number of deaths of commuters who were crossing the tracks and even those who were hanging out of the train and fell outside all of a sudden. Only a few involved in such accidents managed to escape death but they did sustain serious injuries.

Most of the railway accidents occur on Vashi-Mankhurd, Juinagar-Nerul, Panvel-Khandeshwar, Belapur-Seawoods routes and hence the railways are trying to focus most of their attentions along these routes particularly while creating precautionary measures to prevent such accidents.

These accidents occur in spite of the efforts put in by railway officials to create awareness among the railway commuters the dangers of crossing tracks or hanging out of the railway trains. These officials have even gone to the extent of pasting posters and making regular announcements asking the commuters not to trespass or jump out of moving trains. The problem is railways are not staffed to the extent where they can supervise all the tracks. Hence certain violations of laws by the commuters escape their notice thus resulting in accidents.