A chair car used on the Jan Shatabdi express was fully gutted after a fire broke out while the coach was undergoing maintenance at the Carriage Works in Perambur. No casualty was reported.
The incident occurred at around 9.30 a.m. when a corroded portion beneath the modular toilet was being removed with a gas cutter. A pile of combustible materials lodged between the modular shell and the wall of the coach apparently caused the fire to spread rapidly and left the coach completely gutted in spite of efforts by staff to douse the flames with a set of fire extinguishers.
Sources said the quality of the modular toilets needed to be examined as the Fibre Reinforced Plastic material used in these pre-fabricated structures was supposed to be fire retardant.
This is the second such fire incident in four months at the Carriage Works. In September, a coach of the Chennai - Coimbatore Duranto Express was gutted in a fire while undergoing maintenance. Luckily, the fire broke out possibly due to a short circuit at night when no workmen were around.
