Several trains were delayed in a railway station in Uttar Pradesh state of India after the station master got drunk and fell asleep while on duty, officials said.
The duty-officer Deep Singh did not respond to repeated calls from officials, causing them to rush to the Murshadpur train station.
According to local media, Singh was found sleeping in his office with empty liquor bottles under his cot.
Authorities said an inquiry had been ordered into the incident, reports BBC.
A medical examination showed a high level of alcohol in his blood, the authority said.
"He was dead drunk and could barely walk," a senior railway official is quoted as saying in The Hindu newspaper. He added that it was "a very serious matter" which would be further investigated.
The station sources said many long-distance trains had to stop and wait since there was no green signal at the station.
A large number of trains pass through the station every day. Across the country, more than 22 million Indians commute daily on about 9,000 trains.
Such unusual incidents are not uncommon in the country. Employees were suspended in the state of Orissa after 22 carriages detached from a train and sped backwards for 11km (seven miles) in April.
Last November, a group of Indian farmers woke up to find that the train they were travelling on had sped 160km in the "wrong direction".