A coach of a New Delhi-Ghaziabad passenger train derailed at Okhla Railway Station on Tuesday, an official said. No one was hurt.

Northern Railway spokesperson Nitin Chowdhary said, “The wheel of one coach – second from the motor coach of the MEMU (Mainline Electric Multiple Unit), came off the rail at Okhla station at 9.45 a.m.”

“No passenger was injured in the incident,” he said.

He also said that the passengers onward journey continued on other trains.

The derailed wheel of the MEMU coach was being put back on rails. Senior officials of the Northern Railway rushed to the Okhla station after the incident.

“An inquiry has been ordered to look at the cause of the derailment,” the official added.

The Indian Railways today suspended a senior section officer-in-charge of tracks in connection with the November 24 derailment of the Vasco Da Gama Express which left three passengers dead.

Thirteen coaches of the Patna-bound passenger train had derailed near Manikpur Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh.

“A permanent way inspector also called a senior section officer, Rajesh Verma, who was in-charge of Manikpur has been suspended over the incident pending investigation”, railway spokesperson Anil Saxena told PTI.

While the real reason behind the accident will be ascertained only after a probe by the Commissioner of Railway Safety, initial investigations suggested that a rail fracture led to the derailment.

A state-owned French rail company on Monday submitted its report on upgrading the Delhi-Chandigarh railway route and reducing travel time between the two cities by almost an hour and 30 minutes.

The 245-km corridor project will be the first semi-high speed venture of the Railways with French aid which would enable some trains to run at a maximum speed of 200 kmph.

“SNCF, France’s state-owned rail company, started the study in January 2016 and submitted the final report today,” Railway spokesperson Anil Saxena said.

The study was under the consideration of the railway board, he told PTI.

Sources said that in its over 1500-page report, the company stated that the upgrading of the route would cost more than Rs 10,000 crore. The figure, however, could not be confirmed officially.

The journey, which is at present covered in three hours and 30 minutes by the Shatabdi, travelling at a maximum speed of 110 kmph, will take around two hours and two minutes with a halt in Panipat and Ambala after the upgrade.

The project is expected to be launched in January 2018 when French President Emmanuel Macron is likely to visit India, officials said.

The Railways plans to upgrade 4000 kilometres of networks across seven routes, which include Mumbai-Goa, Chennai- Hyderabad, Mysuru-Chennai and Delhi-Kanpur.

Why elephants get spooked by the sound of the honeybee swarm? Science can surely help us answer that, but the Indian Railways has found an ingenious way to make the best use of that!

Despite their thick skin and size, elephants are terrified of bees, particularly of being stung on the sensitive trunk. Such is the fear, that a “bee alarm” almost immediately goes off in the elephant herd with the slightest of buzz.

The state government plans to use the bee sound to keep the endangered pachyderms off the railway tracks, a major source of their accidental deaths.

The Northeast Frontier Railway has deployed devices which amplify the buzz of swarming honeybees, which scares away the elephants.

The device, which costs about Rs. 2,000 and audible to an elephant 600 meters away, was successfully tested near the rail tracks earlier this week.

In 2016 alone, 16 elephants were killed in train-hits, while this year, the figure already crossed half a dozen.

According to an elephant census conducted by the Assam forest department in 2011, there were around 5,600 elephants in the state.

Between 2006 and 2016, around 225 elephants were reportedly killed in train-hits and growing man-animal conflicts.

Engineers from the Indian Army have started work on three foot-overbridges (FOBs) at suburban stations in Mumbai after the Railways gave necessary approvals, a senior official said today.

The official said the permission from the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) for the FOB at Elphinstone Road was expected “any moment”.

He said the General Arrangement Drawing (GAD) of the Elphinstone Road FOB was submitted by the Army engineers yesterday.

The Railways and Army have jointly set January 31, 2018 as the deadline to construct the three FOBs, including the one at Elphinstone Road, where 23 people were killed in a stampede on September 29.

The under-construction bridge at Elphinstone is an extension of the current north-end FOB at Parel station and will land at the west side of the Elphinstone Road station. It is estimated to cost Rs 11 crore, officials said.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had visited the Elphinstone Road station a few weeks ago and announced the January 31 deadline for completing the three FOBs.

A six-year-old boy and his father were among three passengers who killed after 13 coaches of Vasco Da Gama-Patna Express derailed near Manikpur Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh on Friday. At least nine others have also been injured in the accident.

In the second accident of the day, 14 bogies of a coal-laden goods train derailed near Jagatsinghpur in Odisha.

There has been a spate of derailments in the recent past which has raised concerns over the safety of railway operations in the country.

Here is a list of derailments that have taken place since September:

The Ernakulam-Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Duronto Express (train number 12224) derailed in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra on October 26, 2017.

2. Three coaches of a goods train derailed on Achhnera-Mathura rail route on October 04. No casualties were reported.

3. Sixteen coaches of goods train derail near Nergundi station in Odisha in the wee hours of September 27. The accident disrupted rail traffic on the route.

4. Two coaches of a passenger train derailed in Agra on September 23. The train was moving to the yard for cleaning when the derailment took place around 4 AM.

5. The engine of a goods train jumped the tracks near Sitapur Cantt station around 7.10 am on September 19. It was the middle engine of the goods train which derailed.

6. On September 18, just a few house hours before the engine of the goods trains derailed, the Burhwl-Balamau passenger train got off the tracks around 9:40 pm.

7. The last coach of Jammu Rajdhani Express derailed at New Delhi Railway Station at 6 am on September 14. The derailment took place when the train was entering platform no 15 of New Delhi railway station.

8. A rail engine derailed at the Egmore railway station in Chennai on September 11. The incident happened on Platform number 1 when the engine proceeding to the yard derailed.

8. An empty coach of Sealdah Express derailed on September 10 at the Jammu railway station. The incident took place when an empty boggie of the Express train was being brought to the platform from the washing area.

9. The engine of Kashi Vishwanath Express derailed at the New Delhi Railway Station while going towards the yard on September 7.

10. Two wagons of a goods train derailed near Khandala on Thursday at around 3:55 pm on September 8.

11. On the same day, seven coaches of Jabalpur-bound Shaktipunj Express jumped the tracks near the Obra Dam station in the Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh.

12. There was a third accident on the same day when the engine and power car of the Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani Express derailed near Minto Bridge as it was approaching the Delhi station.

13. Seven coaches of Howrah-Jabalpur-Shaptipunj Express derailed at Obra near Sonbhadra in Uttar Pradesh on September 7. The train was running at a speed of about 40 km/hr when the derailment took place.

14. One wagon of a goods train derailed near a level crossing in Odisha’s Cuttack on September 3. The train was proceeding towards goods shed at Cuttack railway station around noon when the derailment happened.

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How to apply

Candidates are required to log on to the RRC/CR website www.rrccr.com provided for filling ONLINE applications and fill up the personal details/BIODATA etc carefully.

Candidates should be in possession of Aadhaar Card. At the time of registration, candidates have to fill 12 digit Aadhaar Card number. The candidates not having Aadhaar number and have enrolled for Aadhaar but have not received Aadhaar Card can enter 28 digit Aadhaar Enrolment ID printed on the Aadhaar Enrolment slip.

Candidates have to keep printouts of their Online application. If found eligible, he/she will be called for Document Verification and the print out of Online application is required to be produced at the time of Document Verification.

For any problems in the Online submission and printing of Application, call on 9167227205 and 9167227071 from 10:00 am to 17:00 pm (except Sundays and Holidays).

Training period and stipend

First year of training – 70 percent of minimum wage of semi-skilled workers notified by the respective State or Union Territory.

Second year of training – 80 percent of minimum wage of semi-skilled workers notified by the respective State or Union Territory.

Third and fourth year of training – 90 percent of minimum wage of semi-skilled workers notified by the respective State or Union Territory.

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Although Indian Railways and the Army are providing an extension to the existing foot overbridge (FOB) connecting Parel with Elphinstone Road, the authorities have now realised that the exit point of the new FOB is too narrow. This is despite the Army tweaking the designs of the FOB that is being extended from the Parel-end. On Monday, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal along with his staff, Army personnel headed by Brigadier D Mohan, and BMC officials inspected the work on the new FOB.

The new design shall be z-shaped with the longest pathway being 250 meters long passing over 11 rail lines. “The girders are already on their way from the Indo-China border,” said an Army officer on condition of anonymity.

The piers for this FOB will go 9-metres deep. “I am sure that work on Elphinstone Road FOB will complete before time. At Currey Road, there are some issues pertaining to private land which will be sorted within 2-3 days,” said Goyal.

Goyal asked his officers and those from BMC to inspect the outlet of the FOB as he felt that there is insufficient space for people to walk after getting down from the bridge. The staircase leads to the Dadar flower market where the exit lane is barely 4-6 feet wide. The lane further narrows down right next to Sunshine Tower where it is barely accommodates people now. The exit on to the road has been blocked by the flower vendors. There is a small right that leads to the entrance of the flower market, which is already congested inside.

“We will have to sit down and check our drawing to come out with a solution for creating wider exits,” said Vijay Singhal, Additional Municipal Commissioner, BMC.

There is a dilapidated building that was used as flower market which now lies more or less empty.

While the Indian Railways, Army and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are struggling to acquire 180 sq metres of land for constructing a foot overbridge (FOB) at Currey Road station, there is a bigger safety problem that the Central Railway (CR) is grappling with. The problem came to notice on Monday when Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal visited Currey Road station to inspect the work on the FOB.

Over the past few months, the CR authorities began constructing the second FOB at Currey Road station and in the past few weeks they have built the staircases on both sides of the platform. The work on the elevated portion of the FOB that extends on the east till the platform, too has been started. They painted this structure in silver, but put granite tiles on the stairs just a couple of days before Goyal was to visit the station.

There are two landings — one towards Dadar and the other towards Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus — where the staircases are there. However, there is an issue with the landing of the staircase towards the CSMT-end as they end straight on to a cemented and tiled seat. This has a metal pole holding the roof and people often sit there while waiting for the train. The gap is barely of 3-4 feet, which is insufficient considering the huge number of commuters.

“We have examined this and it is an additional landing. We are finding out solutions keeping in view the requirement of cover over platforms for the passengers,” said SK Jain, Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), Central Railway.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has stressed on ensuring safety of commuters at railway stations and its premises. Even the multi-disciplinary audit team in its report has stated the need to remove all obstructions near the landing of FOBs across the suburban stations in Mumbai.