Mumbai: Dead rat forces motormen to abandon lobby

Central Railway motormen sit in the main hall of CSMT in protest over severe sanitation issues. Pic/Ashish Raje

A week after the Railways launched a blitzkrieg to show how railway lobbies and running rooms for staff were maintained well, a dead rat in the lobby of motormen of Mumbai's lifeline at Central Railway's headquarter station of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus forced them to sit out in the station hall on Monday.

Two weeks ago, the issue of loco pilots and train drivers had received nationwide attention following the visit of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to New Delhi railway station to hear their grievances. The railways had claimed that the visit had been staged and launched a media campaign across the country to show how the staff lobbies and loco pilot running rooms had been maintained nicely.

"There was a dead rat in some corner of the lobby and the smell was overpowering and hence the chairs and tables had been shifted out from the lobby into the main station hall of CSMT. The overall cleanliness of the place is also very bad. We cannot stop work as it would stop the lifeline of the city and hence, we are sitting out here waiting to take our trains," an affected staffer said.

"The issue at Delhi was about loco pilots and this is an entirely different issue. While loco pilots are long-distance express train and goods train heavy drivers, motormen are local train drivers. There has been a dead rat in the lobby and the railways have initiated a thorough cleaning process," an official said.

"The issue is not about loco pilots or motormen, but upkeep of running rooms which is the responsibility of railways. If this is happening at the city's biggest rail terminus at the headquarters, you can only imagine what happens at smaller stations at other ends," another staffer said.