Central Railway`s principal chief safety officer (PCSO) will probe the Mumbai train tragedy in which four people were killed and nine injured on Monday morning, an official said, reported the PTI.
The incident took place at Mumbra station in Thane district of Maharashtra.
It is being treated as an incident and not accident, Central Railway chief public relations officer Swapnil Nila told PTI.
PCSO CK Prasad visited the site earlier in the day and carried out an inspection, he added.
“Relevant information is being collected and efforts to identify the root cause are being made. The principal chief safety officer (PCSO) will conduct an inquiry into the incident that occurred around 9.10 am,” he said, according to the PTI.
“From preliminary investigation it is found out that the passengers were travelling on the footboard,” Nila said, adding that to avoid similar incidents in the future, all new locals will be introduced with an automatic door closure system, while existing trains will be retrofitted with it, according to the PTI.
A railway team reached the spot at Mumbra station in the evening and took measurements of the gap between the two fast line (Up and Down) tracks there, other officials said.
As per Central Railway officers, eight passengers were found injured in the gap between two parallel railway tracks between Mumbra and Diwa railway stations in the morning, while five other passengers onboard the CSTM-bound Kasara-10 local sustained minor injuries.
Railway officers said Karjat-11 local from CSMT was crossing Kasara-10 local at Mumbra when the incident took place. It was first reported by the train manager of a Kasara-CSMT train, officials said.
Emergency response teams, including ambulances and railway medical staff, were immediately dispatched to the site, and the injured passengers were swiftly transported to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital, Kalwa, and Civil Hospital, Thane, he said, as per the PTI.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the Mumbai local train tragedy, the Indian Railways on Monday decided to take a major step toward enhancing safety and announced to launch new design closed-door non-AC rake trains by November 2025.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, along with senior officials from the Railway Board, held an emergency meeting with the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) team in Chennai to address a long-standing issue — ventilation in non-AC local trains with automatic doors.
The first train of this new design will be ready by November 2025 and after necessary tests and certification, it will be put into service by January 2026.
