Title - Drunk man steals key of local train

CHENNAI: A 45-year-old man, who stole a train driver's suitcase from the Tambaram railway station, was arrested at Dindigul when he arrived there by the Vaigai Express on Monday morning. The suitcase contained a key of a local train, detonators and documents issued by railways to motormen. Motormen are given detonators to alert passing trains in case of a technical snag or a possible danger ahead. The detonators and the key are still missing, though the box has been recovered. Railway police said that S Ramesh from Kadaperi near Tambaram was arrested after CCTV footage showed him walking into the crew room of the station and leaving with the suitcase at 1.50am on Monday. Investigation began after Eshwara Murthy, 47, a suburban train motorman, complained that the suitcase he had left in the room on Sunday night was missing on Monday morning. Motormen leave the suitcases issued to them at the station after duty hours. Police alerted all the railway stations about the stranger who was later caught when he stepped out of Vaigai Express with the steel box at Dindigul railway station. A team of policemen brought him to the city from Dindigul along with the suitcase on Tuesday. Police said Ramesh was drunk when he took away the suitcase. After arresting Ramesh, police opened the suitcase which did not have the detonators and the key. "He said he doesn't remember where he left them," said a railway police official. Motormen have been leaving their cases inside the rooms of the station for years. Nobody bothers to take these locked suitcases because it has markings notifying them as railway property," said a railway police official. After an unidentified man drove away a suburban train and rammed into a shunting loco at Vyasarpadi Jiva railway station in 2009, railway officials have made it mandatory for motormen to handle the steel box, which earlier the technical staff used to take between the station office and the trains.