The Railway Men tells the story of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the railway workers who risked their lives to save the people of the city. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Kumawat is a journalist who is investigating the functioning of a Union Carbide factory that produces pesticides in Bhopal. In the production, a chemical called methyl isocyanate (MIC) is used. When MIC comes in contact with water, it produces a toxic vapor.
Imad Riaz used to work at the factory. In December 1984, he tells Kumawat how Mr. Madsen, the man in charge of the factory, neglects the workers’ safety and ignores their complaints about the compromised fail-safes.
In 1982, C. S. Tyson wrote a report on the safety issues in the factory, but Union Carbide did not change anything. A factory worker, Mohammed Ansari, who was like a brother to Imad, was killed in a gas leak, and now Imad is going to provide for his late friend’s family.
Imad is aware that Union Carbide’s underinvestment in safety is a disaster in the making. He not only wants justice for Ansari’s death but also wants to prevent future accidents, as the factory is located in the middle of the town and one gas leak can cost several lives.
Imad impresses Bhopal Junction’s stationmaster, Iftekaar Siddiqui, and starts working there as a loco pilot. The stationmaster also meets a constable who claims that he has come to Bhopal to catch an infamous thief, Express Bandit.
The stationmaster is unaware that the constable is the Express Bandit and that he has come to steal a large sum of money kept at Bhopal Junction. On the same day, the station’s communication wires are being repaired, so the communication is down.
A senior factory worker, Kumruddin, makes a copy of the Tyson Report and plans to give it to Kumawat. At night, when he is going home to his pregnant wife, Nafisa, he comes to know that two workers, who did not receive proper training, tried to wash the tanks and accidentally mixed water with MIC.
MIC reacts with water, and the toxic gas leaks into the atmosphere. Kumruddin orders the workers to evacuate the factory, but he himself stays back to do damage control. Within minutes of inhaling the toxic gas, Kumruddin dies.
Due to the leak, the people of Bhopal start dying left, right, and center, which causes widespread panic. Despite that, Madsen tells the authorities that the gas leak was an act of sabotage and lies about the gas not being lethal. He does not even tell the authorities how to save the people who have been affected by the gas.
When the stationmaster notices people around him collapsing, he sends every survivor to the waiting hall and closes the door and windows to keep the toxic air out. The Express Bandit, who is still pretending to be a constable, helps the stationmaster.
As Imad has worked at the factory, he immediately realizes that the gas in the air is MIC. While everyone around him dies, Imad survives, as he uses a wet cloth to cover his mouth and nose. He then goes to the waiting room and instructs everyone to do the same.
Imad knows that his mother must have died by now, so he stays at the station to help the stationmaster save as many lives as possible. He goes to check the repair of the communication lines and informs the stationmaster that there is a possibility that they can contact one of the nearby stations.
The stationmaster risks his life to contact other stations and inform them about the gas leak to stop all the passenger trains from coming to Bhopal. The stationmaster fails to contact the stations, but his efforts alert a worker at Itarsi Station that something is wrong in Bhopal.
When the General Manager of Central Railway, Rati Pandey, who has come to Itarsi for a surprise inspection, hears the worker’s concerns, he contacts Bhopal Police and finds out what has happened there.
Rati then tries to stop Gorakhpur Express, a train carrying thousands of people, from reaching Bhopal. Unfortunately, the guard on the train fails to notice his signal to stop the train, as he is busy saving a mother and her son from a group of rioters.
To lose the rioters, the guard is forced to stop the train for a while before it reaches Bhopal. He manages to get rid of them, but not without getting stabbed in the process.
Meanwhile, Rati informs the Director General of Railways, Rajeshwari Janglay, of the situation in Bhopal. Rajeshwari is Rati’s wife. They are currently going through a rough patch, as Rati is getting fired and Rajeshwari is allowing it to happen.
Rajeshwari tells Rati that the Railway Minister has ordered not to send a rescue team to Bhopal because he does not want to risk more lives, but Rati still convinces a lot of railway workers and doctors to volunteer and accompany him to Bhopal.
Rajeshwari also meets Alex Braun, a German toxicologist who worked on the initial studies of the MIC. Braun informs her that sodium thiosulfate acts as an antidote to MIC, so Rajeshwari decides to send him to Bhopal with vials of sodium thiosulfate.
On the other hand, the stationmaster, who believes he is responsible for the lives of all the people at the station, works with Imad to prepare a train in order to take all the survivors away from Bhopal.
While they manage to fit all the survivors in the train, they fail to leave the station because the engine stops working. The stationmaster is so determined to save everyone because he failed to save an eight-year-old boy’s life ten years ago, and his death still haunts him.
At the same time, a representative of Union Carbide tries to stop Rajeshwari from sending sodium thiosulfate, which is also used to cure cyanide poisoning, to Bhopal. The company does not want people to know how toxic MIC is.
Despite Rajeshwari’s refusal to accept bribes, the company’s representative still succeeds. He gets the higher-ups to send Braun back to Germany, and Rati’s rescue train is stopped when it is just one station away from Bhopal. To make matters worse, Gorakhpur Express reaches Bhopal.
The Railway Men ending explained in detail:
Does the stationmaster succeed in saving people?
The stationmaster decides to connect Gorakhpur Express to the train that he was using to get the survivors out of Bhopal. The stationmaster orders the driver of Gorakhpur Express to leave the station within three minutes, no matter what.
While he connects the two trains, Express Bandit stops people from getting out of the train and inhaling the toxic air. A huge crowd arrives at the station, as people who were not killed by the gas are trying to leave the town. Express Bandit also helps the new arrivals get on the train.
As per the stationmaster’s orders, the train leaves Bhopal in three minutes. When Express Bandit comes to know that a relief train is coming, he decides to stay in Bhopal and help, even though he knows that his decision might result in his death.
The stationmaster also stays back to help people. After saving Imad’s friend’s family that was traveling on Gorakhpur Express, he collapses. He loses consciousness, but not before Express Bandit tells him that he saved everyone.
Does Rati go to Bhopal?
When Rati’s train was stopped from going to Bhopal, he contacted Rajeshwari. The two of them resolve their differences, and Rati decides to disobey the minister’s orders one last time.
He takes the rescue team to Bhopal, and no one is able to stop him and his volunteers. He also finds out that railway workers from different cities are disobeying orders and coming to Bhopal to assist him.
However, there is another problem. Rati’s train, which is going to Bhopal, and Gorakhpur Express, which is leaving Bhopal, are on the same track. When a police officer brings the news of the relief train’s arrival to Express Bandit, he relays the information to Imad.
A dying Imad uses the last of his strength to change the track of Gorakhpur Express and prevent the collision. The relief train reaches Bhopal, and the workers start helping the sick immediately, but Imad dies.
The Railway Minister asks Rajeshwari to fire some of the people who chose to support Rati, as he needs a scapegoat. This time, Rajeshwari refuses to follow his orders blindly because she does not want to punish people for doing the right thing.
Rajeshwari is ready to take the fall for them. She takes full responsibility for miscommunicating the minister’s orders and resigns. She goes home, where her husband will be joining her once he returns from Bhopal.
What happens to Union Carbide?
As soon as Kumawat finds out about the gas leak, he goes to Kumruddin’s house and then to the factory. He runs into Nafisa outside the factory and takes her to the hospital when her water breaks.
While looking for Nafisa’s reports, Kumawat finds a copy of the Tyson Report that Kumruddin was going to hand over to him. However, the report ends up working in Union Carbide’s favor.
The report mentions that all the mistakes in the factory were rectified. Madsen points out that Union Carbide will present it in court because it exonerates them. Union Carbide does not face the consequences that it should have.
On the other hand, the innocent people of Bhopal suffer for several years to come without adequate compensation. Nafisa gave birth to her son that night. Her son survived, but he sustained neurological damage.
Is the stationmaster dead or alive?
Believing that the stationmaster is dead, Express Bandit steals the keys to the station’s safe. He finally steals the money for which he came to Bhopal in the first place.
When the authorities are still identifying the bodies of the railway workers, Express Bandit overhears a worker talking to a policeman. They believe that the stationmaster took advantage of the situation, stole the money, and fled.
Express Bandit cannot let the stationmaster’s reputation get soiled after witnessing the man give his everything to save people’s lives all night, so he keeps the money back in the safe, but he keeps one single banknote. He then leaves for Delhi and meets Kumawat, who is also leaving Bhopal.
A year after the tragedy, Express Bandit returns to Bhopal to find the stationmaster alive. The stationmaster woke up when his body was taken for cremation. He was found by his son and taken home.
The stationmaster continues working at Bhopal Railway Station. When Express Bandit meets him, he realizes that the stationmaster knows that he is Express Bandit and that he was the one who stole and then returned the money.
Express Bandit gives the one banknote that he kept to the stationmaster as a reward for saving people’s lives. When the stationmaster warns him not to commit another robbery, Express Bandit tells him that his name is Balwant Yadav to make it known that he does not intend to steal again.
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