Mumbai: An alert motorman saved a teenage girl who was walking on the tracks by stopping the train in the nick of time between Dadar and Elphinstone Road on Saturday night. Munesh Kulshrestha, who has been a motorman for 28 years, said he saw movement 10 to 15 metres ahead on the track.
The incident was one of the rare occasions when a commuter or a trespasser came out unscathed after an encounter with a Mumbai local. Everyday on an average seven people die on the tracks in the suburban network. Mr Kulshrestha said that he was driving the Borivali to Churchgate train on Saturday night and realised that something was amiss. “Around 9.55 pm, I spotted something moving roughly 10 to 15 metres ahead of me. The train was running at 40 kmph and I immediately began to slow the train down because we cannot suddenly hit the brakes. The girl had her back turned toward the train and did not realise that the train was hurtling in her direction,” he said.
Once the train came to a halt, Mr Kulshrestha got off the train and tried to get the teenager to give out her details, but she did not speak. “I put the girl in the ladies coach, which had a GRP constable present. We handed her over to the GRP at Churchgate,” said Mr Kulshrestha.
The girl finally revealed her name and the GRP realised that a case of kidnapping had been registered by her parents at the Antop Hill police station.
A official from the police station said that the parents had filed the kidnapping case on the same day. “The girl was angry with her parents because they had missed parent-teacher meetings at school on a few occasions and felt insulted when a teacher reprimanded her for the same. She didn’t return home after school. The complaint has been taken back by the parents,” said the police official.
Another motorman on the condition of anonymity revealed that a distance of 15 metres at the speed of 40 kmph can be very tricky to manoeuvre. “Basically a train at 40 kmph being brought to a halt at 15 metres takes a lot of alertness and experience. Not only do you have to bring the train at a halt, you have to do it gradually as hitting the brakes too quickly would have derailed the train. Most of the times motorman spot a person on the track very late especially in the dark and they are unable to bring the train to a halt in time and knock the person over,” said the motorman.
The Western and Central Railway motormen have been getting a lot of flak after a motorman overshot the bumper at Churchgate in July last year causing two commuters small injuries. Another similar incident of less severity occurred at CST when a motorguard reversed the train on to the platform at CST in early December last year during the night block.
