The sight of people perched precariously on the roofs of trains is an iconic image of India, but the days of death-defying commuting could be over as one firm gets tough on daredevil travelers.
The Western Railway company, which operates trains on 60km of track in Mumbai, is warning passengers to stay inside carriages and says anyone caught outside will face prosecution.
“Rooftop traveling per se is dangerous,” said S.S. Gupta, from the state-run network.
“There’s a danger of falling down and people have been injured or died. Similarly, there’s a danger of getting electrocuted from the overhead wires running above the trains,” he told reporters.
And the dangers seem very real indeed: From the end of this month, powerful 25,000-volt power lines will be installed above 30km of track as part of an upgrade to the network expected to finish by the end of the year.
“A person should not be within 2m of the wire or they will be electrocuted,” Gupta said.
To drive the message home, actors began performing plays at stations along the route last Thursday, regular announcements are being made and a media advertising campaign started on Friday, he said.
With chronic congestion on the roads of India’s financial capital, the Western Railway and the Central Railway, which serves the central and eastern suburbs, are a lifeline for the estimated 18 million people living in Mumbai.
Nearly 7 million people use the cheap suburban trains — called “locals” — every day to beat the traffic jams, which can turn even the shortest journey into a lengthy, maddening crawl. But although they are the quickest way of getting around the city, peak times can see more than 5,000 people crammed into nine-carriage trains — more than three times the capacity.
With train doors open to the elements to combat high temperatures and humidity, many opt to hang out of the side of carriages or perch between them, putting themselves at risk of injury and death from trackside pylons.
A staggering 17 people died every day on Mumbai’s suburban rail network in 2008, according to Indian government figures obtained by the Times of London newspaper using freedom of information laws.
Most deaths were trespassers on tracks, but more than three people every working day were killed after falling or being pushed from moving trains, the daily said.
“It [rooftop travel] happens at certain periods of the day. It’s limited to a certain section of people. Most of them are aged 18 to 30 and men,” Gupta said. “They may have tickets or not. It’s more a daredevil act than anything else.”
Rooftop travel is already illegal in India and carries a sanction of one month in jail and/or a 500 rupee (US$11) fine, the official said.
Yet, as in many other areas of Indian life, the law is rarely, if ever, enforced.
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