She steers locomotives with ease, inspiring others

Anil Kumar Sastry THE HINDU MANGALURU, MARCH 08, 2018

M. Vanithashree, loco pilot, gets ready to shunt the locomotive at Mangaluru Junction Railway Station on Wednesday. | Photo Credit: H.S. Manjunath

Vanithashree is among the first few to join Railways as an assistant loco pilot

With the Indian Railways is embarking on a mega recruitment drive to fill vacancies, loco pilots such as M. Vanithashree would inspire many a woman to smash the male bastion.

As many as 17,673 posts of assistant loco pilots (ALPs), the entry-level post, would be filled during the drive.

Ms. Vanithashree, now working as loco pilot (shunter) at the Mangaluru Junction Railway Station Yard, is among the first few who joined the profession in 2006. (Shunter is the person who pilots the loco from the shed to the train rake and back at major stations.)

The 33-year-old mother of two boys, Ms. Vanithashree studied diploma in Automobile Engineering at Karnataka Polytechnic, Mangaluru, on her father’s advice. She got selected as an ALP after clearing tests conducted by Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), Thiruvananthapuram, in January 2006, at 22, and piloted the first loco between Erode and Uttukkuli after a six-month training.

Having experience in working on goods trains too, she handled Mangaluru Central–Kabaka Puttur Passenger in 2008 as an ALP.

Ms. Vanithashree, who was promoted in 2010, is the lone woman loco pilot in Southern Railway’s Palakkad Division with 12 years of accident-free service.

Working in a male-dominated environment was not difficult; and in fact, men encouraged her, Ms. Vanithashree told The Hindu, recalling the support by loco pilot Babu at Mangaluru Central, who advised her to take up shunting activities so that she works in one particular station for 10 hours a day.

Initial encouragement from her parents, Narayana Naik and Jayashree, both government employees, and later from husband, V. Sathish, head police constable at Kankanadi Town police station, made her professional life comfortable, she said.

Competent to handle any passenger train independently, she can pilot heavy diesel as well as electric loco. Palakkad Division now has six women ALPs. Ms. Vanithashree is a recipient of the Divisional Railway Manager’s and Chief Operation Manager’s awards. Though there is no reservation for women in railway recruitment, neither is there any discrimination, said Bengaluru RRB Chairman B. Kasiviswanathan. In fact, RRBs’ recent recruitment advertisements featured women’s photographs to encourage them to join the Railways, he said.

All-woman crew

South Western Railway, which has four women loco pilots and seven assistant loco pilots, will operate the Bengaluru–Patna Sangamitra Express with an all-woman crew on Thursday.

Bengaluru Division’s Senior Divisional Commercial Manager N.S. Sridharamurthy said one ALP, one trainee guard, three security personnel, and six ticket-checking staff would work from Bengaluru City to Chennai Central.

Sangeeta Deharia, Banda Usha, Shivapallavi, and Ammanni work as LPs while Neha Yadav, Shakti Chowdury, Sandhyakumari, Rehana Begum, Priyanka Roy, Sangeetha Rani, and Prabha Gosh work as ALPs in three divisions of the SWR.

Bengaluru Division will turn Banaswadi railway station into an all-woman managed station from Thursday.