BENGALURU: In a first such in South Western Railway Zone, a woman was chosen to be in the loco crew team in the fourth Oxygen Express train after it entered Bengaluru Division bearing 120 tonnes of Liquid Medical Oxygen on board. The train reached the Inland Container Depot at Whitefield on Tuesday from Jharkhand.
Assistant Loco Pilot Neelam Kumari, a B.Tech graduate and mother of a five-year-old girl, has just completed one year in her job in the Bengaluru Railway Division. This Bihar native, along with Loco Pilot Dhirendra Kumar and V H Wali, Chief Loco Inspector, got into the engine room at Jolarpet station, from where Division begins. The trio ensured the train, that started at 7.04 am, reached Whitefield at 8.31, am with a speed of 100 km/hr covered through most of its journey except at Bangarpet. It finally entered the ICD at 8.39 am chugging at 15 km/hr.
“I am extremely satisfied and feel proud that I could be of some help in this manner for people undergoing numerous hardships during the pandemic. It is such an honour really,” Kumari told TNIE. “Bearing in mind the important consignment we were carrying, I really felt like an ambulance driver! The entire path was cleared for us and made signal free making it easy to bring the train to safety.”
An ALP needs to be completely alert throughout a train journey and update the LP on the signals and keep a hawk’s eye on the track. “Proceed, Danger and Caution are terms I keep on uttering to the LP throughout the journey,” she said.
Kumar, the father of a young son and daughter, also from Bihar, was the one in the driver’s seat. “I just knew the night before the trip that I might get a chance to steer the Oxygen Express. It is the first time I am getting such an opportunity since I Joined the Bengaluru Division in 2013. I just felt very good. I am fully aware what a precious consignment we were taking along.”
Wali, a Badami native, spent his time standing inside the cabin throughout the trip from Jolarpet to Whitefield. “This is an important assignment. I just wanted to be sure everything happens perfectly,” he said. During his 30-year stint in Railways, he has been involved in transporting gas, oil and numerous other goods but this was special, he added.