A day after a student was killed when he fell down from a running train while trying to take a selfie, the Eastern Railway authorities on Friday urged passengers to be careful and issued guidelines.

A group of students was taking selfies near the door of an EMU train when suddenly one of them fell down from it and was killed between Liluah and Belur railway stations, Government Railway Police (GRP) sources said.

When the train slowed down, four other students alighted from the train in search of their friend who had fallen down but two of them were killed and as many injured when another train coming from the opposite direction hit them, the GRP sources said.

In a bid to avert any such incident in the future, a railway spokesman said they have already launched campaigns in print, television and social media to make passengers aware of the risks of using phones while travelling.

“We have launched campaigns in various media platforms urging people not to use a phone or listen to music while crossing the railway tracks and not to click photographs while travelling,” Chief Public Relations Officer of Eastern Railways Rabi Mahapatra said on Friday.

Stating that photography is “strictly prohibited” inside the railway station premises and trains without prior permission, he warned passengers of strict action if the rules are not followed.

“Photography inside the railway stations and the carriages is always strictly prohibited as these are considered restricted areas. However, with the emergence of phone cameras people often indulge in taking selfies in these places,” Mahapatra explained.

“We have detained and fined several passengers in the past for breaking the rule. Our RPF officials are instructed to monitor the passengers and catch anyone clicking photographs inside the train compartment. Anyone breaking the rule would be penalised,” he added.

Visakhapatnam: Train journey to the picturesque Araku valley will be an even more delightful travelling experience as the Indian Railways has introduced a see-through Vistadome coach on its Visakhapatnam-Kirandul passenger train.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu flagged-off the train through a video link from Bhubaneswar.

The specially-designed Vistadome air-conditioned coach, claimed to be a first-of-its-kind on Indian Railways, has large glass windows and an observation lounge that offer passengers a panoramic view of the sites along the 128-km rail route from Visakhapatnam to Araku valley hill station.

A unique feature of this Rs 3.38 crore 40-seat coach is the double-wide reclining passenger seats that could be rotated 360 degrees for a better sightseeing experience.

The coach also has a glass-domed ceiling, automatic sliding doors and a multi-tier luggage rack, a railway release said.

The tourists can now sit relaxed in their seats and get a clear view of the breath-taking Anantagiri ghat section, Lambasingi, Borra caves and the tunnels along the route, from the Vistadome coach, unlike the crammed train compartments.

The Railway minister has shared some pictures of the coach via twitter:

Maoists began their day-long strike in Jharkhand today by blowing up railway tracks on the Howrah-New Delhi Grand Chord section, disrupting movement of several trains including the Rajdhani Express.

Dhanbad Superintendent of Police (Railway) Asim Vikrant Minz said tracks were blown up between Chichaki and Karmabad stations under Dhanbad Railway Division at 12.40 am, shortly after the “bandh” began at midnight.

Several long-distance trains including Kalka Mail, three Rajdhani Express trains, Hatia-Patna Express and Howrah-Dehradun Express stopped for some time, railway officials said. The schedule of freight trains was also regulated at different places.

Dhanbad Senior Divisional Commercial Manager AK Jha said train services on the route were restored after 7.40 am. Railway officials and personnel of the Railway Protection Police from Hazaribagh rushed to the spot immediately after the explosion, the police said.

In another incident, people torched a vehicle at Dhawatand on Dumri Road during the “bandh” called by Maoists, Giridih Superintendent of Police Akhilesh B Beriar said. They also set fire to an earth-moving machine engaged in constructing a bridge over Barakar river on Dumri-Birni border in the district, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Deepak Sharma said.

A report from Lohardaga district said the strike drew partial response as most shops and markets were open, but long-distance buses did not run. Tight security arrangements have been made in Lohardaga and Maoist-hit Khunti districts, police said.

Two self-styled cow vigilantes or ‘gau rakshaks’ have been arrested by the  Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel in Bhubaneswar for an attack on two caretakers of cows who were thrashed after being accused of transporting the cows for slaughter earlier this week.

Sudarshan Biswal, 39, and Sibananda Panda, 25, believed to members of the local Bajrang Dal unit have been booked for unlawful assembly, assault, rioting and deterring a public servant from discharging his duty.

According to the caretakers of the cows, they tried explaining to the attackers that they were transporting the cows to Guwahati and then to Meghalaya where they would be distributed by the Meghalaya government at a function to villagers and they were not transporting the cows for slaughter. But the vigilantes did not listen to their pleas and rained blows on them, despite the caretakers trying to explain.

The goons then raided the parcel van of the train at the station on Wednesday night after beating the caretakers and offloaded the cows as well. The station superintendent R K Patnaik registered a complaint with the GRP following which the arrests were made. The railway staff who tried to stop the attackers were also assaulted.

The two caretakers, Umesh Singh and Bimal Yadav, have now been given security by the GRP.

“We told them that we are taking the cows from Karnataka to Guwahati. They told us you take the cows for slaughter. We said we have papers but they started beating us,” Bimal Yadav told reporters at Bhubaneswar.

“We are verifying the CCTV footage of the station. Investigation is on. We will arrest other accused involved in the incident,” a senior GRP official told reporters.

The tunnelling work under the Hooghly river, the first such under-river project in the country, to provide Metro connectivity between Howrah and Kolkata is slated to be completed next week. The under-river tunnel is a crucial link for the Railway’s 16.6-km long East-West Metro project in Kolkata. The 520-metre twin tunnel, one east-bound and the other west-bound, is built 30 metre below the riverbed. Commuters between Howrah and Mahakaran Metro stations will be under the river for only about a minute when the Metro train will pass through the tunnel at a speed of 80 km per hour.

Of the 16.6-km route of the East-West Metro project, the tunneling covers 10.6 km, of which 520 metre under the river. The under-river tunnel is being built at an expense of Rs. 60 crore while the total cost of the East-West Metro project is estimated at around Rs. 9,000 crore.

The tunneling work started in April last year and likely to be completed in the river section shortly, a senior Railway ministry official said. The East-West Metro is scheduled to be operational by August, 2019. The internal diametre of each tunnel is 5.55 metre and the thickness of the wall is 275 mm. The distance between the two tunnels is 16.1 metre.

There will be walkways in the tunnels for evacuation of passengers in case of emergency, the official said, adding it was a challenging task to dig tunnel under the river. For the Railways, besides the tunnel under the Hooghly river, drilling work is going on for the seven-km-long under- sea route of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail corridor to ascertain soil condition for India’s first bullet train path.

China’s first subway train, designed especially for mountainous regions with a capacity of over 2,000 passengers, has been delivered, the country’s rail-car maker said today.

China’s Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Qingdao Sifang won the contract to develop a new type of train with a larger driving force and smaller turning radius.

The six-car train will run on Line 5 in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China.

Chongqing is a city of hills. The deepest section of the Line 5 subway is about 70 meters underground, making it the deepest metro line in China.

The train, with a carrying capacity of 2,322 passengers, can run at a maximum speed of 100 km per hour. The producer said it has contracted to make 39 such trains for Chongqing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

It has a 50 per cent better slope performance than the conventional trains.

Located in east China’s port city of Qingdao, (CRRC) Qingdao Sifang designs and manufactures a variety of bullet trains, subway trains and trams.

Many of its products have special functions, for example, those adapting to extreme cold and high altitude or environmentally friendly hydrogen-powered engines.

A railway bridge taller than the Eiffel Tower is being built across the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir and is slated to be ready by 2019. It will be the world’s highest railway bridge. The 1.3 km long “engineering marvel” will connect Bakkal in Jammu’s Katra and Kauri in Srinagar. The arch-shaped 35-metre tall structure is being constructed at a cost of 1,110 crores. The bridge will be a crucial link that connects the Kashmir valley to the rest of the country, part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project.

Once completed, it will break the record of the 275-metre tall Shuibai railway bridge in China

“The construction of the bridge is the most challenging part of the Kashmir rail link project and once completed, it will be an engineering marvel,” said a senior Railway Ministry
official who is part of the project.

The mammoth structure will be made of over 24,000 tonnes of steel and will rise 359 metres above the Chenab bed.  The special blast-proof steel can withstand terror attacks and can resist extremely low temperatures and high wind speeds.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged of India’s longest road tunnel between Chenani and Nashri in the state. With the roads in the region being prone to snow and landslides in winter, the Jammu-Srinagar national highway remains blocked for most parts of the season, cutting the Kashmir valley off from the rest of the country.

Bringing an end to all speculations, railway recruitment boards have announced the ‘Normalized mark for 2nd Stage Examination (CBT) of NTPC (Graduate) posts against CEN No. 03/2015.’ Candidates who had appeared for the examination held in the month of January can now get the score from the official web portal of their respective zones. The aptitude test or skill typing test is likely to be held in the month of June/ July 2017.

‘Provisional short listing of candidates who are to appear in Aptitude Test for the posts of Assistant Station Master (ASM) Traffic Assistant and /or Typing Skill Test for the posts of Junior Accounts Assistant-cum-Typist & Senior Clerk-cum-Typist will be published shortly on the website of the RRBs,’ says the Board.

In general, candidates may note that the roll numbers of the shortlisted candidates for Aptitude Test/Typing Skill Test to be published on the RRB websites shortly, may not include roll numbers of candidates being provisionally considered for the posts of Commercial Apprentice, Traffic Apprentice ECRC and Goods Guard based on their merit and sequence of options.

While aptitude test will be computer based, the skill typing test will be of qualifying nature. In order to qualify, candidates appearing in Typing Skill Test have to type in the language opted for Typing Skill Test during on-line application stage viz. 300 words at the minimum speed of 30 w.p.m. in English or 250 words at 25 w.p.m. in Hindi on computer within 10 minutes.

A tourist escaped with minor injuries when the car he was driving fell off a bridge today from a height of 50 feet on to a railway track between Ellanahalli and Ketti in the Coonoor-Ooty section.

The mishap disrupted train services in the section for nearly an hour, police said.

Soundarrajan, hailing from Thanjavur, was going in his car this morning, when he lost control of the vehicle, reportedly while trying to avoid hitting an animal as a result of which the car fell on the track, police said.

Despite sustaining minor injuries, he came out of the car, even as people rushed to rescue him, police said.

Passengers of Coonoor-Ooty train were stranded as the rescue operation lasted for nearly an hour.

Soundarajan told police that he had noticed a leopard crossing the road and out of fear lost control of the vehicle, which resulted in the accident.