Southern Railway plans to deploy single crew in Vande Bharat, Tejas

Southern Railway plans single crew for high-speed trains, raising safety concerns among loco pilots due to long working hours without breaks. Familiarisation issues and fatigue increase risk of human error, but final decision yet to be taken.

The Southern Railway has planned to introduce a single crew on end-to-end basis for the high-speed Vande Bharat, Tejas and Shatabdi Express trains triggering fears among a section of loco pilots that the move could affect safety due to long working hours without any break. 

Acting on the instructions of the General Manager, the train operating officials on Wednesday issued a circular proposing a single crew on end-to-end basis for Train No. 20665/20666 Chennai Egmore-Tirunelveli Vande Bharat Express, Train No. 20643/20644 Chennai Central-Coimbatore Vande Bharat Express, Train No. 22671/22672 Chennai Egmore-Madurai MS-MDU Express and Train No. 12243/12244 Chennai Central-Coimbatore Shatabdi Express, railway sources said. 

This would mean loco pilots boarding at the originating point will operate the train till its destination without a break making it difficult for them to attend nature’s call and have food. 

The earlier practice was that the crew (loco pilots and assistant loco pilots) would change after certain working hours. For instance, the crew of Chennai-Madurai Pandian Superfast Express originating at Chennai Egmore would change at Tiruchi, the sources said. 

Familiarisation issues 

“Loco poilots working in Tirunelveli depot or Madurai depot may not have much exposure to the automatic signalling system in the Chennai-Villupuram section. Route familiarisation also plays a key role in safety,” a senior railway official contended.

To go ahead with the implementation of the proposal, Southern Railway has asked the Tirunelveli depot crew to undergo route learning programme between Tiruchi and Chennai and get familiar issues with automatic territory block section and obtain section working competency certificates between Villupuram and Chennai Egmore.