BALASORE/BHUBANESWAR: Even as the tragic train crash at Bahanaga, which claimed 293 lives, is still fresh in public memory, a similar mishap was averted at Nilagiri Road station under Kharagpur division of South Eastern Railway (SER), thanks to the alertness of loco pilot on Tuesday. The station is just about 15 km from Bahanaga in Balasore district.
The loco pilot of the Bhadrak-Balasore MEMU passenger train noticed the locomotive entering the down loop line even as the signal was through for the mainline and applied the brakes immediately. Fortunately, the train carrying around 400 passengers was moving at around 7 kmph and no untoward incident occurred.
Sources said, the train had just started leaving the station at about 10.54 am after nearly one minute of halt when the pilot noticed that the point was in ‘reverse’ (towards loop line instead of the mainline). “He applied brakes and brought the train back to the station. The point should have been towards the mainline when the signal was through, but it was in reverse for loop line. Though immediately it could not be ascertained why the point was in reverse, this could be possibly due to failure in the electronic interlocking system,” the sources said.
The sudden reverse movement of the train triggered panic among the passengers. Most of them got down after seeing the train moving backwards. Train services on the down line were disrupted for more than two hours following the incident. The MEMU, however, left Nilagiri Road station after necessary repairs were made to the track on the advice of the control room at Kharagpur.
The train, which was supposed to reach Balasore at 11.10 am, arrived at 1.34 pm. For his brave act, passengers applauded the pilot and garlanded him. While the SER authorities are tight-lipped about the suspected failure in the electronic interlocking system, experts said a catastrophe like Bahanaga was averted only due to the alertness of the loco pilot. “The failure in the interlocking system is similar to that of Bahanaga. The only difference is the point here was towards the down loop line while the Bahanaga incident was on the up loop line. Had it been an Express train and the incident happened in the night, it would have been a disaster,” they said.
CPRO of SER Aditya Kumar Chaudhary said the loco pilot stopped the train after he got confused noticing the point position. He, however, denied that the point was towards the loop line. “Station manager and others rushed to the spot to check the track condition. The train left after everything was normalised,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kharagpur DRM KR Chaudhary has asked Nilgiri Road station manager Subas Sethi and a token porter to report at his office and submit details about the incident and the reasons behind it.