Women in IR

Yes, of course. Although the overwhelming majority of drivers of locomotives and EMUs are men, in recent years a few women have become drivers. Since the mid-1980s or so, there have been a few women drivers and assistant drivers of goods and passenger locomotives (Nagpur, Waltair, Kharagpur, Adra, etc.), and several who pilot shunters. Kalyan has a woman WCG-2 driver, For EMUs, Ms Surekha Yadav made headlines as the first woman to drive an EMU in the Mumbai system in 2001 (it was a Dombivli local to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai). She started as a goods and shunter driver in 1986.

There are many women who work in other operational positions, as station staff, signal staff, and so on. Curiously, women stationmasters are rare and found only in suburban sections of SR. In the non-operational roles (administration, management, etc.) there are plenty of women employed by IR -- it's not rare at all.

Women porters are quite rare. Wankaner is one station which is said to have had many women porters in the 1980s. (Situation today is unclear.) Margoa is another station where there are said to be (or to have been) some women porters. Women have always been present in significant numbers alongside men in other occupations involving manual labour, however, including construction activities and such. In steam days, there were many women employed in the manual coaling of steam locomotives.