RailEnquiry

BANGALORE: It's 12:51pm at the Krishnarajapuram railway station in East Bangalore. The Bangalore-Marikuppam passenger and Chennai-Bangalore Brindavan express chug on to platform three and two respectively almost at the same time. Nearly 50 passengers rush to the other side of the tracks to board the Marikuppam passenger from the track side just to grab a seat. A minute later at 12:52pm, when Brindavan express chugs on to platform two, passengers hop on to the tracks, get on to platform one and get out of the station.TOI witnesses senior citizens, women and men with children and luggage in tow cross the deadly railway tracks. Even a day after two persons were crushed by trains at the next station at Whitefield, passengers don't seem to have learnt about the dangers of crossing the tracks. "It saves time to cross the tracks than to struggle to climb up and down the stairs of the railway overbridge. Moreover, the access to the second and third platform from platform number one is such that it's time-saving," said A Sukumaran, resident of Kaggadaspura who took his son along with him to cross the tracks.Saving time could cost you your life. When TOI asked Vasudevan R if he knew the dangers of crossing the tracks and that too with his old parents, he just smiled and walked away. His mother was walking with the help of a crutch on one side and by holding his hands by the other side.

Passengers have their own excuses. Like Fatima Begum. "The ticket counter at Vijinapura side is on platform one but this platform doesn't have a connectivity to the bridge. You have to get out of the station and climb the ROB to go to the other platforms. Instead it is easy to cross just two tracks and reach there," she said, ignoring the dangers of crossing the tracks.

The railway staff, including women signal staff, perhaps don't realize that they are setting a bad example by crossing the tracks to save time. Platform four faces the outer ring road which is the gateway to the city's IT hubs and the other side is Vijinapura.

RAILWAY SPEAK

"We have a foot overbridge (FOB) in KR Puram but people don't use it. But in stations where we don't have such overbridges, they blame us for having to cross the tracks. We can force passengers to use FOB but that cannot happen on a regular basis; we don't have enough staff to monitor this," said AK Agarwal, divisional railway manager, Bangalore division of South Western Railway.

He said that a Rs 14 crore project was on the anvil. Under this, the KR Puram-Kolar line would be upgraded, there would be a second ROB at the other end of the station, platform two and three would be widened and the first platform would be restructured to accommodate 25 coaches which was now enough for a 10-coach rake. The project is yet to be sanctioned by the railway board.