Civil services officers of the Indian Railways have officially formed a separate union called the Indian Railway Civil Services Officers Association and informed Minister Suresh Prabhu of the same. In a letter to him, they said that, over the years, the role of traffic, personnel and finance officers - all belonging to the civil services - has been marginalised in the Railways. They cited this as one of the main reasons for floating a separate union. The trigger was the Railway Board's recent decision to deliberate a proposal to keep out non-engineers from running the national transporter. The deliberation, it seems, has been put off for a later day in view of protests from the civil services officers.