Two coaches caught fire in the railway yard at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus on Tuesday. The fire started a little before 3 p.m., and was doused by 3.40 p.m.
The two coaches — an airconditioned coach and a sleeper coach — were parked on the pit lines for maintenance and were shut. There were no injuries or casualties. The fire started in the sleeper coach and spread to the AC coach that was parked ahead of it. The sleeper coach was charred in the fire.
The fire call went out around 2.50 p.m., and the Fire Brigade arrived at 3.15 p.m. The railway staff opened the water lines used to clean trains. They also used a shunting loco to pull the AC coach away from the sleeper coach, reducing the damage. A high-level enquiry committee consisting of four officers has been appointed to investigate the incident. “Our yards are porous and susceptible outside interference, personally I think the reason is because of outside elements. However we can only say with certainty once we conduct our investigation,” D.K. Sharma, General Manager, Central Railway, said.
“Each of these pipes have capacity of carrying 60-100 litres of water. Our staff used it to control the fire for around 15-20 minutes before the fire fighters arrived,” Sanjay Kumar Pankaj, acting Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), Central Railwaym said. CR had also moved the nearby rakes before the fire brigade arrived at 3.23 p.m.
The fire affected four long distance trains that as the electrical supply to the overhead wire had been cut off during firefighting measures. The power was reinstated only at 4.25 p.m. after the cooling operations were concluded.
