Gas leak detected on goods train transporting LPG at Mumbai’s Vasai station

Mishap averted by alert guards; suburban rail network unaffected as train had pulled into a siding when leak was detected

A guard in a 50-wagon LPG container goods train alerted railway officials at Vasai Road station on Wednesday morning after he smelt gas and suspected there was leakage from a container, thereby averting a possible mishap.

Fire brigade and IOC officials plugging gas leak in a container on a good train in Vasai on Wednesday. (Rahul Birhade)

The incident took place around 5.10am, when the goods train, carrying LPG from Bharat Petroleum Company Limited’s (BPCL) refilling plant in Uran to New Delhi, had pulled into a siding at the station.

The guard, Jagjit Singh Sur, was travelling with the train that had 44 gas containers, each with a capacity of 27000kg, when he heard a noise and checked it out, said a Western Railway official. “He noticed that gas was leaking from the lid of the seventh container,” said Ravinder Bhakar,chief public relations officer, WR.

Sur immediately alerted the deputy station superintendent at Vasai Road, who called the Vasai fire brigade and the gas company.

Fire brigade personnel reached the spot nearly five hours later, at 9.50am, while officials from Indian Oil Company, which has a depot in Vasai, reached the spot around 11.30am. The leak was plugged by 12 noon.

As a precaution, WR officials switched off electric supply to the overhead traction wires and instructed staff not to use mobile phones near the siding.

The train departed finally at 2.10pm, said a WR official.