As a step towards expanding and strengthening the role of women in Railways, South Central Railway deploys the first ever woman Loco Pilot to drive independently a passenger carrying train from 08th March, 2012, aptly coinciding with the celebration of International Women’s Day.
Smt. S. Satyavathi,will bethe first ever woman Loco Pilot to independently handle the running of passenger carrying trains on SC Railway and will work as the Loco Pilot on Falaknuma-Lingampalli “Matribhoomi” Ladies Special MMTSTrain from 8th March, 2012, raising cheeramong thefraternity ofwomen.
Smt. S. Satyavathi has initially joined as Asst. Loco Pilot at Bangalore in the year 1999 and later got transferred to Secunderabad Division. She was promoted as Loco Pilot (Goods)on 1st September 2005. From the day of promotion, she has been working in shuttling duties on goods trains in and around Hyderabad area.
Due to her zeal and commitment, Smt. Satyavathi was considered for running MMTS Trains. After successfully clearing her MMTS training on 19th January, 2012, she has been given the exposure to live-handling and requisite track-learning of the section and was found fit to run MMTS Trains in the sub-urban sections in twin-citiesas an independent MMTS Loco Pilot. She will be single handedly managing and working MMTS Trains with out any assistance of Asst.Loco Pilot. She has also taken Track learning in Hyderabad- Tandur section and aspires for running Main line Passenger trains too.
Driving Cadre is one of the tough categories of staff as far as train operations is concerned, as in general, the train crew have no fixed, regular working hours.As the trains are spread over time and places, so is the status of it’s crew. Railways has a meticulous system of training its Loco Pilots and only suitable candidates, after rigorous training,are put into service.
As the crew have to leave their Head Quarters frequentlyto other stations driving a train, they need to have adequate rest at the rest houses meant exclusively forrunningstaff at various stations. This again makes it challenging as far as deploying independent women loco pilot is concerned. However, all these issues were adequately addressed and SCR introduces it’s first ever independent Woman Loco Pilot (Passenger) from 8th march, 2012.Secunderabad Division of South Central Railway has four more woman Asst. Loco Pilots who are also being groomed for taking higher responsibility of Loco Pilots in future