Protesters block the railway tracks at the accident site. Picture by Pronab Biswas

Everyone who commutes regularly by local train on the Ranaghat-Sealdah route knows what it takes to clamber into one, hang on there and get off with life and limb intact. Wednesday’s accident may have dented their confidence.

“It could have been me lying on the track. Every time I board a local train it’s like living life on the edge,” Shyamal Mitra, a senior executive with a private company dealing in excavators and dredgers, told Metro.

A survival guide for travel by local train perhaps wouldn’t read much different from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. “The first task after elbowing your way into the compartment is to find something to hold on to — it could be anything from the handlebars to the window rods. Caution and presence of mind come into play as the train pulls up at a station and passengers push and shove to get to the door,” said another regular.

On days when luck deserts the commuter, tragedies like the one on Wednesday occur.

“Train delays are partly to blame for the rush. I aim to take the 9.55am Naihati local from Sodepur every day but it always runs late. So I board the Ranaghat local, which is scheduled to arrive at 9.47am but comes at 10am,” said Mitra, who is in his 40s. “The result of delays is that the crowd grows every minute and passengers meant to board two trains pile into one.”

Bank officer Debasish Mukherjee echoed him. “The local train timings do nothing to ease peak-hour rush. For instance, after the down Kalyani local crosses Agarpara at 9.18am, the next train — the Naihati local — is after 21 minutes. Passengers have no choice but to take the risk of entering a chock-a-block compartment.”

On the main line, the station farthest from Sealdah is Gede — nearly 110km away — and the local train that covers this distance is invariably the most crowded at any time of day. Railway officers say the maximum number of passengers can be seen at Kalyani, Chakdah, Shyamnagar, Naihati, Barrackpore, Sodepur, Belghoria and Dum Dum.

“After what happened on Wednesday, one has to be a braveheart to board a train at any of these busy stations. But commuters don’t have a choice, do they?” asked Rupali Chatterjee, an insurance agent from Belghoria.