NEW DELHI: First, it was a herd of buffaloes. Then, a cow. On Saturday, it was a bull that was hit by the Vande Bharat Express. The semi-high-speed train sustained slight damages to its front panel for the third time in less than a month when it hit a bull near Atul in Gujarat. The incident occurred at around 8.20 am when the train was going to Gandhinagar from Mumbai. The accident caused a delay of 20 minutes. The animal died in the accident.
“There was no damage to the train, except to the nose cone covering of the front coach occupied by the drivers. All the passengers on board were safe,” Western Railway spokesperson Sumit Thakur said. Earlier, similar incidents took place on two consecutive days on October 6 and 7, when the Vande Bharat Express rammed into cattle. The first incident took place between Vatva and Maninagar railway stations in Gujarat, when four buffaloes were killed.
The nose panel of the train had to be replaced overnight. The next one occurred near Anand in the state and involved a cow being hit. In both accidents, the train’s front side suffered partial damage. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw then said that cattle hits are unavoidable. “The train which reaches the top speed of 160kmph in a few seconds has been designed keeping the possibility of such incidents in mind by experts,” he had said, adding that the ministry is erecting fencing along the tracks on which semi and high-speed trains run.
The indigenously designed and manufactured train, the third service under the Vande Bharat series, was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 30 from Gandhinagar and started its commercial run the next day. The railway ministry is working to run 75 Vande Bharat trains by August 15, 2023, and 400 of them in the next three years.