RAILWAY SAMACHAR

Gujarat Express coach gutted

DRM rules out short-circuit theory, says human error could have been cause of fire

Ahmedabad : The first class coach of Gujarat Express 9011 was mysteriously gutted about three hours after its arrival at Ahmedabad railway station from Mumbai, on Sunday.

The train which had arrived at about 2.45 pm on platform number 2, was about to depart for its maintenance yard at 5.15 pm when some bystanders noticed willows of smoke rising in the air from the coach FC1 and alerted the railway staff.

On receiving the information senior officials of Ahmedabad Railway division rushed to platfiorm number 2, and summoned three fire tenders to fight the fire. The cause of the fire was not ascertained till the filing of this report.

The fire tenders took about 2 hours to douse the fire

However, the officials rejected short-circuit to be the cause of fire, and said that it must have been because of careless attitude of a passenger who must have abandoned ignited cigarette butt or any other fire object in the coach. The fire tenders took about 2 hours to douse the fire. The affected coach was disconnected from the rest coaches.

According to Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Ashok Garud, “Short circuit may not be the cause of the fire, instead, a passenger seems have careless left the ignited cigerette butt which could have become the cause of fire.” The “C” coupe of the coach was found to be severely affected.

The FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) officials too had visited the spot and have discarded the short-circuit theory. They said that the cause of fire must have been because of some other reason.

Though the fire was noticed at about 5.15 pm, it took more than half-an-hour for the railway staff to unlock the coach to fight the fire. By the time the doors to the coach were open, the fire had engulfed almost interiors .

It may be recalled that during the Sabarmati Express tragedy, the FSL had undertaken various experiments to get to the root cause of the fire. The FSL had tried various ways to ascertain the cause of the tragedy including throwing ignited butts, dousing with kerosene and petrol etc, and concluded that a coach cannot catch fire so easily.