Chennai: Manoharan, 58, of Villupuram has had many memorable train journeys in his two-decade-long career as a train guard but not like the one he had on board Puducherry-Egmore express on Tuesday, a day he and his bosses would badly want to forget and one that passengers would remember for all the bad reasons and ridicule about for a while at least.
Drunk as a skunk, Manoharan forgot his primary duty — waving the green flag — and kept the Egmore-bound express from Puducherry he was “guarding” waiting at 8.15 am at Tambaram junction. Unable to spot the green flag jutting out of the guard’s cabin way beyond the scheduled two-minute stoppage time, the concerned loco pilot walked all the way up to the guard van at the tail-end of the train. The train was already an hour behind schedule and the loco pilot’s ‘SoS’ evoked no response.
To his dismay, the loco pilot and few railway staff on the platform found a drunk Manoharan lying on the floor, not to mention the vomit around.
Worse, the drunken guard not only refused to wave the green flag, he even insisted that the train be short-terminated at Tambaram.
People who witnessed the incident said Manoharan even objected to another guard boarding the guard van.
