The track’s safe

Senior section engineer,Northern Railways

Vaidya is responsible for track safety at four railway stretches in Delhi—Yamuna Bridge,Pragati Maidan,Ring Rail and Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station. Though much of his job involves coordinating and managing the 300-odd track safety staff working under him,Vaidya has to personally oversee the rail tracks,keeping a close eye on chinks.

On a Thursday morning,with the rain a steady drizzle,Rajesh Vaidya was at his workstation: a trolley along the railway tracks at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station in New Delhi. Vaidya is a senior section engineer with the Northern Railways,which makes him responsible for track safety at four railway stretches in Delhi—Yamuna Bridge,Pragati Maidan,Ring Rail and the main line at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station.

It’s barely four days since the Kalka Mail accident and Vaidya is a key link in that chain of people who work tirelessly to minimise rail mishaps. Though much of his job involves coordinating and managing the 300-odd track safety staff working under him,Vaidya has to personally oversee the rail tracks,keeping a close eye on the chinks,keys,turnouts (where rail tracks cross over from one line to another) on the tracks. “We also collect reports from another department that checks tracks with ultrasonic frequency devices,” he says.

Once a month,Vaidya is out on his push-trolley,manually inspecting the line. The job has its risks. A couple of months ago,while he was on a similar inspection,he turned around to see a train,inches away from his trolley. “There is always a risk while we are on such inspections,especially on the push trolleys. The foot inspections too are hazardous but that is the nature of our job. There have been several instances of gangmen (workers who physically check tracks and repair them) being run down. We have to be alert,” he says.

While Vaidya is on his trolley and engrossed in the inspection,he has four other workers who keep an eye on trains that may be on the same track as theirs. The workers get off the trolley and deftly lift it off the tracks every time a train has to pass that way.

Since the four stretches of rail tracks under his charge are all at different locations,Vaidya has no fixed workstation. Neither does he have fixed weekly offs and says that depending on the work load,he works for days on end and when he feels assured that the tracks have been checked and approved,he takes a day off.

His day starts at 6.30 a.m. with calls that he makes to his seniors,informing them about the work to be undertaken that day. By 8.30 a.m.,he is in his office,preparing to set off for his inspections.

“The stretches of rail tracks that have been allotted to me recently are yet to be stabilised. They need a lot of work. Maybe in a few months,I will be a little relaxed. We are repairing the turnouts at some key areas at the Nizamuddin railway station and contractors are at work changing sleepers (the concrete slabs below the rail tracks). This work is crucial as it directly affects the safety of the tracks and Nizamuddin being a busy station,with over a 100 trains running out of the station daily,it needs close supervision,” Vaidya explains,while heading to oversee the contractors. “We also take care not to affect the schedule of trains. We just cannot let trains lose their running time because of our track maintenance work.”

Back in his asbestos-roof office,a notice board reminds him of the court hearings the following day. As part of his track maintenance,Vaidya also has to ensure there are no encroachments along the tracks. A couple of months ago,an encroachment-removal drive had gone out of hand with railway officials getting into a scuffle with the encroachers,who then went to court. Vaidya has been preparing his case and attending court hearings ever since. He claims it’s not a big deal,that he has removed several such encroachments and dealt with “even more difficult people”,but the hearings have simply added to his work.

His phone keeps ringing,some updating him about gangmen not turning up,others asking for instructions on blocks (when trains are taken off certain tracks for maintenance work). But at no point does he lose his composure. “We are responsible for the safety of thousands of people. We just cannot fall short.”