In an effort to prevent any more loss of life due to a protective fence that caused the death of 7 commuters within hours at St Thomas Mount Railway Station in July, the railway officials commenced work to realign the track at the ill-fated platform number four, on Saturday.
Railway officials commenced work to realign the track at St Thomas Mount Railway Station
Chennai:
This was one of the demands raised by a large section of regular commuters during the public hearing that was conducted after the mishap.
A month ago, five commuters had lost their lives when the bag of one of them got entangled with the concrete fence at the railway station. Hours before that, another pair of commuters had met with the same fate at the same spot. That is when the public demanded the removal of the fence. During inspection and hearing conducted after the accident, the chief safety commissioner had directed zonal railway officials to take action.
Following this, the officials decided to realign the track to prevent similar accidents. Though the demand was to remove the fence, a senior engineer said it would only result in more accidents. Instead, they decided to realign the tracks.
According to officials, the work that commenced on Saturday would be completed in the next four months, after which the fast local train would resume service.