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The Railways has given you another reason to charge your phone or laptops before you get on board a train. The Railways has decided to cut off the power supply to the charging ports on trains between 11 pm and 5 am as a precautionary measure against spread of fire.

The Western Railway has already put things in motion on March 16 by cutting off supply to these charging ports between this period.

“It is a Railway Board instruction for all railways. We have started implementing it from March 16,” a PTI report says quoting CPRO of Western Railway, Sumit Thakur. Southern Railway CPRO B Guganesan said that these instructions are not new, but a reiteration of earlier orders of the Railway Board, the report added.

The move comes in the backdrop of recent incidents of fire reported in some trains. According to railway officials, the decision to restrict the use of the charging ports was taken as a precautionary measure.
In a report on the fires, officials suggested that the points used for charging mobile phones and other electronic devices should be switched off at night. Many incidents of minor fires, reported onboard long-distance trains, were caused due to overcharging of electronic devices, officials said.

Recently a coach of the Dehradun-bound Shatabdi Express caught fire in a suspected case of a short circuit on March 13. Barely six days later, a fire broke out in the engine of a static goods train at the Ranchi station.

The Railways has also announced a slew of initiatives against smoking and carrying inflammable items, which were apparently also the cause behind some of the recent fires onboard trains.
The national transporter has instructed zonal railways to initiate an intensive awareness drive of seven days to educate all the stakeholders, including railway users and employees, about precautions to be taken against fire incidents.

(With PTI inputs)