The Southern Railway has planned to introduce a single crew on end-to-end basis for the high-speed Vande Bharat, Tejas and Shatabdi Express trains triggering fears among a section of loco pilots that the move could affect safety due to long working hours without any break.
Acting on the instructions of the General Manager, the train operating officials on Wednesday issued a circular proposing a single crew on end-to-end basis for Train No. 20665/20666 Chennai Egmore-Tirunelveli Vande Bharat Express, Train No. 20643/20644 Chennai Central-Coimbatore Vande Bharat Express, Train No. 22671/22672 Chennai Egmore-Madurai MS-MDU Express and Train No. 12243/12244 Chennai Central-Coimbatore Shatabdi Express, railway sources said.
This would mean loco pilots boarding at the originating point will operate the train till its destination without a break making it difficult for them to attend nature’s call and have food.
The earlier practice was that the crew (loco pilots and assistant loco pilots) would change after certain working hours. For instance, the crew of Chennai-Madurai Pandian Superfast Express originating at Chennai Egmore would change at Tiruchi, the sources said.
Familiarisation issues
“Loco poilots working in Tirunelveli depot or Madurai depot may not have much exposure to the automatic signalling system in the Chennai-Villupuram section. Route familiarisation also plays a key role in safety,” a senior railway official contended.
To go ahead with the implementation of the proposal, Southern Railway has asked the Tirunelveli depot crew to undergo route learning programme between Tiruchi and Chennai and get familiar issues with automatic territory block section and obtain section working competency certificates between Villupuram and Chennai Egmore.
Similar learning on familiarisation programmes have been assigned to crew in Madurai, Chennai Central and Coimbatore depots and obtain automatic territory block section working competency certificates, a source said.
Some loco pilots, when contacted by The Hindu, said the usual practice over Indian Railways was that a crew would operate a train for about 400-450 km.
“In the automatic signalling sections, there is at least one signal in every kilometre. In the Chennai-Villupuram section there are more than 170 signals that the crew has to observe. The crew of Vande Bharat Express has to cover 170 signals in 110 minutes. It means every 38 seconds the crew has to cross one signal.
Whenever the speed of a train is increased, the mental stress of the crew also goes up,” a loco pilot said.
Requesting not to be quoted, the loco pilot, who has put in several years of service, said sustained attention was required during entire duty hours. “First 4-6 hours any person will work with full energy, then he/she will become fatigued. This move to have an end-to-end crew may be unsafe for the travelling public,” he said.
All India Loco Running Staff Association central organising secretary V. Balachandran said the crew of a train has to be vigilant and cautious from departure to arrival.
Safety risk
“Any duty hours are subject to the human working and endurance conditions. A slight lapse on the part of the crew will end up in accidents. Such decisions cannot be taken without considering the intensive nature of work, absence of scheduled time and facility for attending nature’s call, having meal breaks etc. Long working hours will only set in fatigue thereby increasing the chances of human error like passing the signal at danger,” he said.
However, a railway official when called for the official version said the move was only at proposal stage. Such a system was already in vogue in other zones. A final decision was yet to be taken in Southern Railway, he said.
