A woman gave birth on board the Cheran Express barely a few hundred metres off Chennai Central around 5.20 pm on Wednesday.
A heavily pregnant Ms Sulochana, 23, had boarded the Cheran Express at Arakkonam along with her husband and parents early on Wednesday morning to reach Chennai for her second delivery. However, her labour pains started as the train was closing Tiruvallur.
Alerted by her mechanic husband, Mr Selvam, GRP personnel on board alerted their colleagues at Chennai Central where an ambulance was kept ready.
Realising the gravity of the situation, several passengers cleared their berths to accommodate Ms Sulochana.
Attended to by her mother and another relative, she finally delivered a baby girl aboard coach S-12 as the train crossed Basin Bridge station.
GRP officials said that Ms Sulochana and the baby were rushed to ICH in Egmore once the train reached Chennai Central. The mother was administered IV (intravenous) fluid and both were healthy, they added.
Meanwhile, Ms Sulochana’s delivery exposed the appalling medical attention available for passengers on trains.
The pregnant woman was brought to Chennai Central without being attended to by a doctor en route. Curiously, the train had halted at the Perambur Railway Hospital, where the Railway Hospital is located.
GRP personnel told this newspaper that at least two or three persons reached Central dead every month and most of them were patients heading to Chennai for tertiary medical care.
“Mostly, passengers complaining of illness on board trains are attended by a railway doctor in the next major station. The doctor offers a couple of pills or at the most an injection,” officials added.