2 railway trackmen awarded for averting accident

GUWAHATI, Feb 13: Two trackmen of NF Railway’s Lumding Division – Sibth Yadav and Tamal Das whose alertness and prompt action helped avert a major accident – were awarded by NF Railway General Mager Chahatey Ram with a citation, along with a cash award at Lumding yesterday. Yadav and Das, both track maintainers under Lumding Division, were on night track patrolling duty on February 3, 2017 between km 208/2 to km 213/2 between ilalung and Longcholiet stations. On reaching km 208/4-6 around 11.52 pm they heard sound of opening of clips for fastening rails to sleepers. They also saw about four-five miscreants with torch lights in the area. On accosting them, they were asked to leave the site and also threatened with dire consequence. They went back towards ilalung from where they communicated with the senior section engineer, P. Way, Diphu and rrated the incident. On receiving information the Senior Section Engineer immediately informed the divisiol control room. Train no. 15604 Ledo – Kamakhya Intercity Express which reached Diphu by that time was immediately controlled at Diphu. The senior section engineer, along with RPF security staff and nine other trackmen, started from Diphu for the site in the light engine detached from the said train. On reaching the site they found about 15 Pandrol clips were missing inside of outer rails of curve no 143. Moreover 20 Pandrol clips were found open and scattered in the same location. The track was repaired immediately and declared fit at 2-35 am on February 3, 2017, an NF Railway press release said.

The passage of any train on the track with missing track fittings would have resulted in major accident.