MANGALURU: Over 900 passengers aboard the Mangaluru-Bengaluru (Yeshwantpur) express had a miraculous escape when the train was hit by a boulder at Donigal between Shirivagilu and Yadakumari at 2.10 am on Monday. The impact led to the derailment of one coach and two engines. But the day was saved for the passengers as the alert loco driver brought the train to a halt after sensing the drag and strain on the engine.
Traffic in this section has been temporarily disrupted and some trains have been rescheduled or cancelled, railway staff said.
The train, Kannur/Karwar-Bengaluru Express (no.16518/16524), had just emerged out of the Donigal tunnel when a large boulder slid onto the train from the hill and severed the link between the engine and the first bogie.
“We must thank our stars as the driver was running the train at a moderate speed. This enabled him to stop the train before it reached the curve overlooking the dangerous ravine,” Vittal Varadaraya Pai, a passenger on the train, told Express.
“The train had come two hours late to the Subramanya Road station. I was in the bogie that got hit by the boulder. The thud and the violent jolt almost threw me out of my berth, but after that I could feel only the violent screeching of the brakes and the sideways drag of the bogie. The compartment had tilted when the train came to a halt,” said Raghunandan, a passenger and an analyst at the Concentrix, an IT-BT company of Bengaluru.
“Those in the bogie started panicking. It was a challenge to help everyone out of the bogie in pitch darkness. Soon, the travelling ticket collectors arrived with torchlights and a few passengers put on the lights on their mobile phones. We helped about 300 people in the first three bogies behind the locomotive,” said Raghunandan.
The pairing train which came from Bengaluru was terminated at Sakleshpur. The passengers of the derailed train were brought back to Mangaluru with the help of the third engine which was attached in the back. The train arrived at the Mangalore Central at 8 am and left for Bengaluru via Palakkad-Salem. Many passengers got off the train in Mangaluru and made their way to Bengaluru via road. The passengers on the pairing train were taken to Mangaluru on buses.
Divisional Railway Manager of Mysuru Division Raj Kumar Lal visited the spot. According to railway officials, the accident had damaged 19 metres of the track.
