Rail authorities blame porters for frequent escalators malfunctioning
The porters are known to shut down the escalators, just before a long-distance train arrives, as it has affected their business and so that passengers can hire their services to carry their luggage, claim officials. The porters have denied these allegations.
Mumbai: Escalators at railway stations are a boon for weary-legged commuters, but it is not uncommon to find them inoperative. Central Railway authorities claim porters are to be blamed for the abrupt halts of these electric staircases.
The porters are known to shut down the escalators, just before a long-distance train arrives, as it has affected their business and so that passengers can hire their services to carry their luggage, claim officials. The porters have denied these allegations.
The other reason is nuisance makers who, for fun, often press the red ‘STOP’ button that’s meant for emergencies. Sometimes, senior citizens who find it challenging to step onto the moving staircase also use the STOP button, say officials, who are in the process of collating escalator failures at various CR stations in and around Mumbai.
There are 111 escalators installed at 79 stations on the Main, Harbour and Trans-harbour lines of the Central Railway where suburban trains operate. And, according to CR officials, they have to restart these escalators about150-200 times each day.
At stations like Kurla’s Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Thane and Kalyan, where long distance trains halt, it is allegedly the porters that are behind this, while local commuters make a mockery of the system at stations including Wadala, Kurla, Ghatkopar, and some stations beyond Thane and Vashi as well.
“We have CCTVs at each of these escalators. What we have found is that during the period just before long-distance trains are scheduled to arrive; the escalators stalls, and we have a reason to believe that the porters at the railway stations might be pressing the STOP button,” said a senior Central Railway official. With escalators, the challenge of carrying heavy luggage has ended for passengers, and this is one reason why officials believe that p ortersmay be tampering with them.
Rail officials claim that porters have rejected these allegations, but maintained that escalators have indeed affected their business. When they are not in working conditions, passengers fret and seek the services of porters, officials said.
On an average, a single escalator may stop functioning for whatever reason at least three to five times a day, officials said. This number is higher at a few key stations where footfall is higher. Despite officials trying to actively monitor these escalators, complaints from passengers about inoperative escalators on the Central Railway abound on social media.
It takes at least 10-15 minutes to reset the escalator once it shuts down. This is because someone needs to complain or inform about it, then the officials in-charge at the station recheck the CCTV feed and send rail staff at the site to inspect the shut escalator.
“We are working on an in-house technology that will reduce the cases of escalators malfunctioning,” said Rajnish Kumar Goyal, Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), Central Railway.
There have also been failures caused by people damaging escalator handrails and throwing things like slippers, keys, and pieces of cloth into the machine on purpose. This leads to something called as a ‘comb error’, which takes 10-15 minutes to rectify. As the STOP button is a safety feature, it cannot be covered with anything temporary or transparent.
Earlier, there were at least two persons on the FOBs at each station to monitor and maintain them on emergency basis, but this number has now dropped to one person, exacerbating the disruption.
