Chennai: Locked doors make boarding trains difficult at intermediate stations

Chennai: Locked doors of express trains of Southern Railway, which ferries nearly 50 crore passengers annually, make boarding a Herculean task at intermediate stations where everything happens in a jiffy.

“On September 30, I was to board Yercaud Express at Tiruvallur railway station. The train has a stoppage time of one minute at Tiruvallur. But doors of my coach and nearby coaches were locked from inside on that day. We were struggling for a while, and then a TTE came and opened the door. Had the TTE not opened the door, we would have missed the train”, K. Baskar, former member, Divisional Railway Users’ Consultative Committee (DRUCC), said.

Baskar had a confirmed ticket to travel on the reserved coach along with his wife.
He had sent complaint to Director of public grievances and other higher officials including the general manager about the incident and asked that TTEs be instructed to ensure comfortable and safe boarding of the passengers.

“I wrote about this to Southern Railway on October 3. There is a standing instruction that TTEs posted in the express trains ought to ensure the doors are opened before arriving at intermediate stations. But many TTEs do not abide by this. The railway should ask TTEs to adhere to the instructions”, he added.
Baskar may be the only one who had complained formally about such behaviour, but hundreds of passengers who board long-distance trains at intermediate stations like Tiruvallur, Arakkonam, Tiruttani and Puttur on Chennai-Coimbatore and Chennai-Mumbai railway line, face similar issues. Once the train leaves the originating station, which is mostly Chennai, doors of several reserved coaches are locked from inside.

TTEs are provided with the list of passengers who would board trains at any station. “But lackadaisical behaviour of some TTEs affects rail passengers. The management nowadays snubs the complaints and do not acknowledge”, Basker said.

Southern Railway said TTE manning the coach had to detrain an unreserved passenger who was in an inebriated condition. “This caused delay in opening the door”, a spokesperson of the Southern Railways said.

When asked about the negligence in acknowledging passengers’ complaints, Southern Railway officials said that when complaints are made through a proper channel, they would take necessary action. “On any given day, we receive at least 100 complaints from passengers. The complaints are then forwarded to officials concerned for action,” an official said.