BENGALURU: Metro services were disrupted for 25 minutes on the Green Line on Monday morning after a 49-year-old former Air Force employee jumped onto the railway tracks at Jalahalli Metro Station in the face of an approaching train. Quick action by women guards on Platform 2 in stopping the train through emergency systems saved the man’s life. He did not sustain any major injury.
The man, a native of Bihar, jumped on the tracks at 10.25 am when a train coming from Silk Institute was heading towards Madavara, read a press release from the BMRCL.
“Two women guards sprang into action as soon as they witnessed his action. A Home Guard on the platform pressed the Emergency Stop Plunger switch located on the platform. She broke the glass window and activated it.
This switch results in complete emergency brakes applied for the train by using the signalling system,” a source said. Simultaneously, another woman private security guard pressed the Emergency Trip System and this which stopped the power supply to the train completely, the source added. “After the train came to a halt, BMRCL staff rushed and pulled the man out of the tracks,” he added
From 10.25 am up to 10.50 pm, BMRCL operated short loop trains which ran between Yesvantpur and Silk Institute. Normal train services were restored on the Green Line by 10.50 am.
A spate of suicide bids rocked Bengaluru Metro last year with BMRCL planning to install platform screen doors (PSDs) at Sir M Visvesvaraya and Kempegowda Metro stations. “The plan is being finalised. We have to call for tenders in this connection,” BMRCL MD Maheswar Rao told TNIE.
In BMRCL’s upcoming Pink line of Phase-2 from Nagavara to Kalena Agrahara, it has already contracted the installation of PSDs to Alstom Transport India for its 13 underground stations apart from platform screen gates, which will be half the height of PSDs, at six elevated stations. The Blue Line comprising both Phase 2A will have PSGs at 30 elevated stations.