BHUBANESWAR: The South Eastern Railway (SER) on Wednesday suspended the station manager and pointsman of Nilagiri Road station in Balasore district for negligence in duty that could have led to a Bahanaga-like incident. After a preliminary inquiry, SER sources said, station manager Subas Sethi and pointsman Sheikh Mohammad Khalip were placed under suspension on charges of dereliction of duty.
A probe has been ordered to ascertain whether there was any fault with the electronic interlocking system and signalling. On Tuesday, a major mishap was averted by the loco pilot of the Bhadrak-Balasore MEMU passenger train at Nilagiri Road station, nearly 15 km from Bahanaga station, where the tragic train crash involving two trains had claimed 293 lives on June 2.
Loco pilot Umesh Panda noticed the locomotive entering the down loop line even as the signal was through for the mainline. He applied the brakes immediately. As the MEMU was moving at a speed of around 8 kmph, no untoward incident occurred.
Sources said a maintenance block was taken on point from 11:05 pm to 12:25 pm for repair works at Nilgiri Road station in the Balasore-Bhadrak section. The trains were allowed to move on paper authority (written permission) during the period. The loco pilot stopped before the point due to confusion as the point was towards the down loop line instead of the mainline.
Appreciating the alertness of the loco pilot, senior divisional commercial manager (DCM) OP Charan said station staff were suspended for slackness in duty.
“The block was taken for maintenance at that point. There was no unsafe work in this case and maintenance was being taken under proper disconnection. There was no possibility of derailment or accident due to this,” he said.