The officials of South Central Railway (SCR) have posted men at 560 unmanned level crossings in the zone.

The decision is apparently taken in the wake of the recent tragedy at Masaipet unmanned level crossing in which 16 school children died last month in a train bus collision.

The men, provided with retro-reflective jackets and red flags, will alert the road users about the approaching trains, SCR General Manager P K Srivastava told reporters here today.

At present, there are 640 unmanned level crossings on SCR and action plan to eliminate each of them is under implementation. It is targeted to remove all the remaining unmanned crossings by FY 2016-17, Srivastava said. Presently, SCR has 6 divisions, namely Secunderabad, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur and Nanded.

SCR spokesperson K Sambasiva Rao said SCR is the first zone out of the 17 zones in the country to post men at unmanned level-crossings to strengthen safety. At high-density road traffic flow, the men will be put on round-the-clock duty, while at low-density traffic, the men will be on day duty only, Rao said, adding that these men will sensitise and counsel the road users.
Efforts are on to man all the unmanned-level crossings including by constructing subways, he added.

18 persons, including 16 school children were killed at Masaipet in Medak district of Telangana when a passenger train rammed into a school bus at an unmanned level-crossing on July 24. Reacting to a query, the SCR GM said that the Railway Police which probed the incident have held driver of the bus, B Goud, responsible for the accident, but the case has been closed as he was also among the dead.

On freight traffic in SCR zone, Srivastava said the SCR wanted to achieve loading of 120 million tonne of freight this fiscal as against loading of 108 million tonne of freight during 2013-14.

- PTI