Mumbai: Two coaches parked at CSMT yard catch fire

Water used to clean the outer body of trains came to the aid of railway staff to douse the fire that engulfed two coaches — one AC and the other, sleeper — parked on the pit lines at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus yard.

As the fire call went around at 2.50 pm, the staff rushed to the spot and opened the water pipelines that have outlets to at regular distance. The outlets were then connected to the pipes, and they began spraying water on the two burning coaches. This water is used to clean the exteriors of trains. Later, however, fire extinguishers were brought to the site.

“Each of these pipes has capacity of carrying 60-100 litres of water. For the first 15-20 minutes, our staff used them to control the fire from spreading,” said Sanjay Kumar Pankaj, acting Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), Central Railway.

By 2.52pm, the overhead cables supplying electricity were shut off, and before arrival of the fire tenders, adjoining coaches and adjoining rakes parked on the nearby line were also moved away.

The railways are not ruling out the possibility of mischief. “Our yards are porous to outside interference; the fire could have been the handiwork nefarious elements. But we are waiting for an investigation,” said DK Sharma, General Manager, Central Railway.

A high-level inquiry committee consisting of four officers have been appointed to investigate the incident. Meanwhile it also had repercussion on other long distance trains that ran late anywhere between 10 minutes to 75 minutes. These trains namely were 11019 CSMT-BBS Konark express,16381 CSMT - Kanyakumari, 11401 Nandigram Express and 12125 CSMT-Pune Pragati express.