Loco pilots should switch off personal mobile phone when train is moving; use official phone only during emergencies: Railway Board

Railway Board mandates strict enforcement to curb mobile phone usage by loco pilots when train is moving, with regular checks and disciplinary actions.

The Railway Board has directed all the zonal general managers to launch special drives, including ‘ambush’ checks, immediately across all their respective divisions to strictly curb mobile phone usage during train operations by the loco pilots and assistant loco pilots.

The loco pilots and motormen were asked to declare any personal mobile phone, including the number and the mobile phone service provider, while signing for duty and the loco pilot inspector concerned should check this information regularly.

In the latest directive, the Railway Board (RB) had said that during the train run all mobile phones, both official phone under the common user group category and the personal one, must be switched off and kept securely in the bag/box. While the personal mobile phones should not be used under any circumstances when the train is moving , the official phone can be used during emergencies like accidents, equipment failures, any unusual incident, etc.

And, any such use of the official phone under the common user group must be recorded at the end of the journey in the register maintained at the crew lobby. Senior officials should continue to digitally track the official/personal phones usage and the phone call records during duty hours.

The facility to track mobile usage during work hours is already available in the Crew Management System (CMS). Call records from mobile service providers is uploaded to the system. Those loco pilots found to be using mobile phones – personal or official, unauthorisedly will be liable for disciplinary action, said the official directive.

The Railway Board has reminded the zonal railways about dangers of mobile phone usage following goods train ‘mistakenly’ assumed a green signal at the Lusa station of Prayagraj division of the national capital region (NCR) and jumped the signal. A board meeting which had reviewed the incident has called for daily random checks by each division. A monthly summary of the checks conducted, violations detected, and the action taken should be submitted from every division every month, it added.