Title - Shortage of loco pilots and coaches hits special trains

CHENNAI: With festival season round the corner, the railways are hunting for coaches and loco pilots to run special trains. As there is a shortage of loco pilots, loco pilots who drive passenger trains and occasionally goods train drivers are assigned to special trains.Southern Railway is short of coaches and loco pilots because the centralised system of allott has not helped many zones meet the demand for new and special trains. Sources said that "instructions have been given to maximise utilisation of rakes to operate as many special trains as possible during the festival season on popular routes. But, there is a 13% shortage of experienced loco pilots."Rakes of trains that are operated only once or twice a week are also used as specials to Madurai or Coimbatore. Such rakes are also used to operate daytime special trains.However, shortage of assistant loco pilots and loco pilots is a stumbling block before running specials. "A few loco pilots who operate goods trains are being used to run special trains from Egmore. This can be a safety risk because express trains run at 110km per hour while goods trains are run at a maximum speed of 70km per hour," said an official.The sequence of postings and promotions designed to help a recruit gain experience is also violated to meet demand for manpower. A fresher is posted as assistant loco pilot on a goods train, then to assistant in passenger trains, and then promoted as a loco pilot and is posted to drive a shunting loco. After gaining experience driving a shunting loco at slow speed, the loco pilot is posted to run passenger trains and mail or express trains.

Southern Railway chief public relations officer D Lakshmanan said that "a special train is operated only if we have adequate loco pilot and coaches. If we do not have them, trains are not operated." It takes more than a year for fresh recruits to join duty. "Those who were selected in 2011 have just started to join. Many leave during training because of poor pay (5,830 plus 1,900) and inconvenient nature of duty," said an official.

The training period has been reduced from 52 weeks to 17 weeks so that fresh recruits can join duty quickly. All India Loco Running Staff Association has demanded that recruitments should be held every year so that shortage of staff will not impact passenger safety.