Bengaluru: The shortage of loco pilots in South Western Railway (SWR) is expected to be eased, with the zone set to go ahead with the training of 590 assistant loco pilot (ALP) candidates from next month.According to SWR, a total of 1,162 ALP candidates were recruited by the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and 590 of them are expected to join training by March 15.Additionally, the zone will promote several of its current employees to ALPs, for which the training has already begun.“Already 502 candidates selected under the promotional quota are under training in SWR, and another 70 promotional candidates will join training by Feb 18,” a senior SWR official told TOI. The remaining candidates, according to officials, will be onboarded when slots become available.Following protests, the Railway Board in June 2024 decided to hire 1,576 ALPs for the SWR zone. At that time, there were 473 ALP vacancies, and the remaining 1,103 were additional. The candidate selection process was completed last year.As of July 2025, the sanctioned strength for loco running staff in SWR is 5,142, but only 3,083 are currently working. Karnataka alone has 2,059 vacancies—roughly 40% of the requirement.However, a trainer pointed out limited infrastructure within SWR to train all the candidates in one go. Currently, there are facilities in Bengaluru, Hubballi, and Dharwad which can provide food accommodation and training for the candidates. Once onboarded, the candidates will train for 85 days before getting deployed on duty.“In the last few years, a lot of new trains were introduced within the zone, and the workload for loco pilots also increased. The training infrastructure is also limited, and it needs to improve if they want to train ALPs faster. Moreover, loco pilots retire every year or become unfit and hence require urgent replacements,” said C Sunish, a former SWR Loco Pilot.
