A Vande Bharat Train managed to avert a major disaster on Monday night as alert railway officials spotted and removed a boulder from the tracks. The loco pilot of the Visakhapatnam-Durg Vande Bharat Express (Train No.: 20830) spotted the boulder near the Nuapada Road Railway Station in Odisha around 10 PM. As he hit the brakes he managed to bring the train to a complete halt about 100 metres from the railway crossing gate.
After stopping the train, the loco pilot informed the station master. The railway staff reached the spot and removed the stone from the track, following which the train movement could be restored to normal. The incident partially disrupted operations for nearly an hour.
A police team from Nuapada Police Station also reached the spot and launched an investigation into the matter to find out who had placed the huge stone on the railway track.
Last month, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched an inquiry to investigate potential sabotage in recent train derailments and accidents. The anti-terror agency officials are currently investigating at least four such cases, officials said on Friday.
According to a report by news agency PTI, the officials stated that not much concrete evidence has been discovered so far to confirm the sabotage attempts in those train derailments/accidents. In the first week of October, another derailment bid was thwarted in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli after loco pilots of a train spotted a heap of sand dumped on the railway tracks. The incident was reported from near Raghuraj Singh station in Raebareli on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday (October 6-7).
The soil was removed from the track after loco pilots flagged the issue and rail traffic was resumed on the route. “A small pile of soil was dumped on the railway track because of which a shuttle train from Raibareli was stopped,” said an official of the Raebareli Police.
(This is a developing story and is being updated.)
