Loco Pilot, Station Manager Among 4 Suspended For Rourkela Train Derailment

Rourkela: A day after a major tragedy was narrowly avoided after a goods train jumped tracks and came to a halt just inches away from a slum household in Rourkela’s Malgodown, the Railways on Thursday suspended loco pilot, the station manager, a guard and a centring employee for negligence in duty.

According to reports, the employees were suspended as part of an ongoing investigation by Railway General Manager Anil Mishra into the cause of the derailment.

The incident occurred between 6 am and 6.15 am on Wednesday when the goods train was being placed at the warehouse in Malgodown. Due to reasons unknown, three wagons of the goods train derailed, crashed through the protective boundary wall, and ploughed through the paved road on its western side before stopping dangerously close to a slum dwelling near Basanti Colony in Rourkela, damaging a parked auto-rickshaw and rickshaw.

Fortunately, no one was injured.

“The train driver, while placing the freight train at the goods shed line, could not control it, and a wagon broke the wall at the dead end of the track and entered the road,” chief public relations officer, South Eastern Railway (SER), Om Prakash Charan told TOI.

The incident took place on the goods shed line and not on the mainline, he said, adding that no train services were affected as the track was immediately restored after removing the derailed wagons.