Fire scare for Mumbai-Howrah Duronto Express passengers

Railways dismisses claims, says technical fault in axle led to detachment of coach

It was not something that Basab Chatterjee (name changed) and his wife were expecting when they boarded the Howrah bound Duronto Express from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) on Thursday.

"It was just before dawn. I was sleeping when the train suddenly stopped. There was a lot of commotion. When I got out of the train I saw smoke emitting from our coach (B3). My immediate reaction was to get my wife out of the compartment. There was fire and Railways' staff used the extinguisher to doze the flame," he said.

Another lady, who was travelling alone, in the same train narrated a similar experience. "The train stopped at a small station after Nagpur. It was there for two hours. The coach that caught fire had to be detached," she said.

Senior officials at South-Eastern Railways confirmed the incident but dismissed claims of fire in the train compartment.

"It was a technical fault. It happened because of hot axle. Such an incident is rare but can sometimes happen due to friction. Since the axle was hot it was emitting smoke. There was no fire. The train was detained for two hours and we detached the coach. Passengers were accommodated in other compartments. It reached Howrah on Friday, delayed by two and a half hours," a spokesperson for the South-Eastern Railways told Business Standard.

The incident, however, raises questions about the safety standards adopted by Indian Railways. "You can still understand if it was due to human error. But this happened probably because of poor maintenance. This is not acceptable," said Chatterjee's son, who is based in Mumbai.

While his claim may not be completely accurate, it somewhat echo the concerns expressed by former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi.

"Indian Railways is ailing and ageing. Age with ailment is a deadly combination and that's when accidents take place. At the moment, the tracks are not safe. By politicising the Railways, you are not helping, but risking the life of the common man," Trivedi had told Business Standard earlier this year after he was forced to resign from his post.

Trivedi had earned his party Trinamool Congress' (TMC) wrath for increasing passenger fares in the Railway Budget for 2012-13. Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal and TMC chief, who introduced the non-stop Duronto Express trains when she was the rail minister, had asked Trivedi to resign.