The Northeast Frontier Railway has awarded six staff, including two locomotive drivers, who stopped a passenger train to let a herd of elephants cross the track.
Loco pilot Amar Nath Bhagat, alerted by his assistant Pawan Kumar, had on August 24 stopped the Bamanhat-Siliguri Junction passenger train between Sivok and Gumla stations in northern West Bengal to let a herd of seven elephants pass.
NFR general manager Sanjive Roy presented a certificate and cash award of ₹2,500 each to Mr. Bhagat and Mr. Kumar for their presence of mind that helped avert a “possible mishap”.
The other awardees included Shib Shankar Singh, a gateman who alerted after noticing heavy smoke in a coach of Kamakhya-Ranchi Express on July 21, and fellow gateman Prasenjit Roy who noticed sparking in the Dibrugarh-Delhi Brahmaputra Mail and helped avert a mishap. The other two were Sone Lal Ram and Kundan Kumar who detected a defect in a goods train wagon at New Jalpaiguri station .