Indian Railways set to do a Delhi metro, roll out separate coaches

In a bid to ensure comfortable travel and safety for women in trains, Indian Railways is toying with the idea to introduce a separate coach for female passengers on the lines of Delhi Metro. These coaches will have a pink band demarcation like Metro trains, which reserve one coach for women travellers.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted about the development saying, "For the safety of women, now trains are being set up in the same way as the metro, in which women will travel alone or with small children. They have been started by the North Frontier Railway, soon this facility will be started in other trains"

महिलाओं की सुरक्षा के लिए अब मेट्रो की तरह ट्रेन में भी पिंक कोच लगाया जा रहा है, जिसमे महिलाएं अकेले या छोटे बच्चों के साथ यात्रा करेंगी।

इनकी शुरुआत नार्थ फ्रंटियर रेलवे द्वारा की जा चुकी है, शीघ्र ही यह सुविधा अन्य ट्रेनों में भी आरंभ की जाएगी।https://t.co/vxdqe0U2XT

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) July 31, 2019

Notably, only women passengers will be allowed to travel with small children in such coaches. Indian Railways' North-East Frontier Zone (NFR Railway) has already begun with this practice, painting around six passenger trains. These SLR coaches have reportedly been coloured Pink for women passengers in the Rangiya Division of NFR, between New Bongaigaon and Guwahati. This initiative is expected to be beneficial for the safety and security of women passengers. 

So far, only trains running on the suburban route have this facility, but long-distance passenger and mail express trains were devoid of reserve coaches for women. With this move by the North Frontier Rail Zone, other zones are also likely to follow the example.

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Notably, Indian Railways has striven hard in the past few years to ensure safe journey for women travellers with women-only coaches to all-female squads. It also has stations like Ajni Station of the Nagpur Division, and Matunga station in the Mumbai Division which are solely run by women staff. One more example is Thiruvananthapuram railway station, where a team of 16 women has successfully handled maintenance of Vanchinad Express. The all-women staff, constituted in January 2017, is known as the Pink Team.