Why women driving trains in India want other jobs

In May 2021, Meena, an assistant loco pilot in Madhya Pradesh began feeling sharp pain in her abdomen and developed a fever. When she went to the nearest railway hospital, she was given painkillers and asked to get a sonography done. “At first, I thought it was gas or another urinary tract infection, since I had it two-three times before,” she told Scroll over the phone.

But this time, the shooting pain turned out to be a kidney abscess – that is, a pocket of pus had developed in Meena’s kidney tissue. If left untreated, the abscess could have damaged her internal organs and posed a threat to her life. Meena immediately saw a doctor and began treatment for the abscess. “I luckily received a diagnosis on time and went on sick leave for a month,” she said. The abscess, her doctor explained to her had developed from a urinary tract infection.

As a goods train loco pilot, Meena was used to long shifts. “Our shifts last for 12 hours minimum,” she said. “And we cannot use the washroom during this time. I drink less water and hold my pee in for hours, so such things are bound to happen.” (Meena and other loco pilots Scroll spoke to for this story asked to be identified by pseudonyms.)

Meena explained that it was not uncommon for women loco pilots to develop urinary tract infections. This was evident from a document that Scroll accessed, compiled by women loco pilots, summarising medical problems faced by 33 such loco pilots across the country. The document noted that as a result of the lack of sanitation facilities and the arduous nature of their work, the women suffer from a range of complications, including urinary tract infections, uterine fibroids, high blood pressure and even miscarriages.

In the late 1990s, the Indian railways began installing toilets for loco pilots in the crew cabins of trains. However, as Scroll previously reported, only a small fraction of trains have toilets in the loco pilots’ cabin. “Even if there is a toilet in the cabin for us, most of the time there is no running water inside, making it too unhygienic for use,” said Meena. A letter of appeal that women loco pilots wrote in April this year to the railway board noted that the lack of washroom facilities “leads to distraction of concentration on duty which can affect the safety of train working”.

Samira, a loco pilot from Uttar Pradesh, noted that the absence of toilets was not a problem only inside trains. “Often even in lobby rooms at the station, there is no separate washroom facility for women loco pilots,” she said. “To use the washroom, we have to go to the one on the station platform or the running room, both of which take five-ten minutes to reach.”

In their letter to the railways, which they sent under the banner of the All India Railwaymen Federation, women loco pilots noted that apart from being prone to health troubles, they also fear for their safety while at work, and further, struggle to manage their domestic responsibilities. The letter asked that women loco pilots be issued a “cadre change” – that is, to be assigned roles other than of loco pilots. A loco pilot organising the collective said that at present there are around 2,000 women loco pilots working across the country, and that of these, almost 1,500 had signed the letter seeking a change in their roles.

This was not the first time they have submitted such an appeal. Women loco pilots Scroll spoke to revealed that they had been discussing the possibility with the railways since 2018. They recounted that that year, senior railway officials had said they would consider the possibility of changing the women pilots’ roles, but that no progress was made on this front.

Scroll emailed queries about the women’s complaints to the railways. This story will be updated if they respond.

Not designed for women

The struggles of loco pilots in India face have been in the news after an accident in West Bengal involving the Kanchenjunga Express, in which ten people were killed. Railway officials initially blamed the train’s deceased loco pilot for the crash, but later investigations cleared him of blame. The attention on loco pilots intensified after the leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, met them in July and shared a video on social media in which some spoke of the challenges they face in their work.

While this focused some attention on these problems, women loco pilots face even greater hurdles in the profession. “It’s as if the railways didn’t think through the fact that with more women becoming loco pilots, rules and facilities would also have to change accordingly,” said Meena.

For instance, women loco pilots explained that the ladders to their cabins are so high from the ground that they usually have to jump three or four feet up and down while climbing into and out of them. This is a problem primarily faced by loco pilots of goods trains, which don’t usually stop at platforms during journeys. “The average height of Indian women is around five feet, these ladders weren’t designed keeping us in mind,” said Samira.

Juhi, a goods train loco pilot, noted, “We have to hang on from our hands to climb or jump from the cabins.”

In June 2023, Juhi was jumping out of her cabin when she fell to the ground, severely damaging the tendons of her shoulders. She went on sick leave for more than a month, and when she returned to work, was given office duty for a month. But her shoulder did not heal completely in this time. Juhi requested for extensions to her office duty, and was granted a few, but was eventually asked to go back to driving trains.

Within a few days of her returning to her job, the condition of her shoulder worsened, and she was forced to go on leave again. But she was unable to take the duration of leave she needed, because a railway hospital declared her fit for duty. “I had to report back to work because the railway hospital declared me fit, even though I went to a private hospital on the same day and they said something was wrong and told me to have an MRI done,” she said.

Despite her condition, she is not entitled to any more extended leave. Instead, she has been forced to avail of parental leave, usually intended to be used in times when children need additional care, such as when they are unwell.

Gynaecological health

Women loco pilots face particularly intense difficulties when it comes to their pregnancies. In October 2021, Samira was on outstation duty when she thought she had started her period. After noticing some irregular spotting, she decided to consult a doctor. To her dismay, Samira, who was not aware that she was pregnant, was told that she had had a miscarriage.

Samira was in her early thirties and had been wanting to start a family. She planned to get pregnant again soon. In 2023, she was in her third month of her pregnancy, when she had a miscarriage again. This left her devastated. “I had been taking precautions and avoiding heavy manual work,” she said. “But it is difficult to manage line duty when you’re pregnant.”

When Samira planned a pregnancy again, she requested that she be assigned office duty for a few months. But her request was denied. Disappointed, she decided to go on unpaid leave for a year. “I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened earlier,” she said. “If the railways really wanted female participation, then they would also look into providing lighter duties for women when they are expecting.”

The loco pilots’ letter to the railway board discussed this problem. “Most of the women are facing miscarriages in pregnancy as there is no light duty provision, it is not possible for any pregnant women to work continuously without break for around 6-11 hours,” it stated. “Moreover, pregnant lady feels less physical strength, dizziness, mood swings, morning sickness.” Meanwhile, it noted, “running duty needs active and physical fit employees who can actively climb up, jump down from locomotives to check locomotive, to attend ACPs, to attend technical faults which is not possible for a pregnant lady.”

It added, “Most of the loco women running staff are using their own leaves or using leave without pay facility during their pregnancy which is an unjust act.”

Samira is currently in the sixth month of her third pregnancy. In the early months of her pregnancy, she was assigned office work. But subsequently, she was asked to take on driving duties. She raised concerns about doing so, but said that railway doctors and management were dismissive of her concerns. “They told me that I’m pretending to have difficulties,” she said.

So, Samira decided to avail of her maternal leave early, to safeguard her health. She had wanted to take this time off after her delivery in November, but was left without the option. Her maternal leave finishes in January, and she worries about the care of her child after – she lives with an ailing mother in law, and her husband, who is in the armed forces and works at a border area and so is seldom home. “I can hire people to take care of my child but a young baby needs its mother,” she said. “On outstation duty, I can be away from home for days.”

Samira noted that she knew women loco pilots who had had three or four miscarriages. “Miscarriages affect you a lot psychologically,” she said. “I’ve somehow managed to get out of this trauma, but I don’t know how others have managed. There’s no support for us.”

Psychological safety

Apart from the health problems they face as a result of their work and work environment, women loco pilots said they were also often put in potentially unsafe situations. Meena said that it was not uncommon for her to have to attend to incidents of chain pulling, or other technical problems in the middle of the night. “No matter the time or place, if there’s an issue with the train, we have to see to it,” she said. “This means stopping the train and getting out at odd hours, or in in the middle of a jungle, a situation where a woman could be mugged or assaulted.”

Sometimes, on these occasions, male passengers would make derisive comments about the train running slowly or stopping frequently because the loco pilot was a woman, leaving her feeling deeply uncomfortable. On one harrowing occasion, she recounted, when she was in the cabin and the loco pilot was outside talking to someone, a miscreant threw stones at the stationary cabin.

Even reaching stations for work can be difficult. Samira, who lives an hour away from her headquarter station, said that she has repeatedly requested her management to provide her with a pick-up facility when she is assigned night duty, or to not assign her night duty at all. But her requests have never been approved. “I live in a town and there’s no way for me to get to the station at 2 in the morning, so I would have to remain absent at work,” she said.

Long and unpredictable hours of their work also have an impact on the women’s family lives, particularly those who have children. “The men have their wives who pack their tiffins and look after the children, but we have to manage everything on our own,” said Juhi.

One woman assistant loco pilot who had been working for over eight years explained that she had not taken a promotion, despite having had the option. “My workload is already more than I can manage, and I know that I won’t be able to cope as a loco pilot,” she said. “I’ve seen my colleagues struggle, so I stay where I am.”

All the women loco pilots said that unless the problems they faced while working were addressed, they did not see any option available to them but to have their job categories changed. Samira recalled male colleagues telling her, “This job is not for women. It’s tough enough for us.”

But she believes that the railways could do more to address the problems that women loco pilots face. “If they wanted to change things they would, but it’s a male-dominated field and they don’t want to,” said Samira.

Juhi noted, “Everyone likes the idea of women being loco pilot, but nobody wants to listen to our woes.”