Last 2 years saw less cases of deaths from falling off trains

IN THE past two years, the instances of people losing lives by falling off local trains has dropped considerably. The year 2017 saw 654 accidental deaths, with the cause noted as ‘fall from running trains’, according to the data from the Railways. A total of 657 such cases were registered in 2016, hinting at a steady graph. However, the death instances are considerably lower — almost 18.5 per cent — compared to that in 2015, when 806 people died after they fell off running trains.

This year, 167 death cases were registered in the first quarter itself. The Central Railways has seen a consistent drop in the number of such instances.
The number of deaths have dropped from 545 in 2015 to 446 in the year after and to 407 in 2017. A similar trend is seen at the Kurla station, one of the busiest suburban stations in the city. From 103 two years ago, incidents have been now reduced to 73. In the Western suburbs, however, more people died in 2017 (247) after falling off running trains than the year before.

Officials said that by building more boundary walls across tracks and increasing the height of platforms to reduce the falling between gap, the railways have been able to restrict the falls from trains. They said that a larger awareness among commuters also contributed in the drop in accidental deaths.