Mystery shrouds the crash of the Charminar Express (Train No. 12759) into the barrier at dead end minutes after it rolled into platform five of the Hyderabad railway terminal station at Nampally, about an hour late from the scheduled time of 8.10 a.m. injuring six passengers and derailing three coaches, on Wednesday.
The distance between the last signal and the barrier is about 300 metres and obviously the driver overshot it at a speed of about 15 kmph either out of oversight, miscalculated the timing or was unable to see the red light due to the foggy weather.
Due to the relative slow speed of the train, the impact was not much and about six passengers suffered minor injuries as they fell when they were either at the door or on the footboard. They were immediately provided first aid at the medical facility and later moved to the central hospital at Lallaguda for further treatment.
Senior railway officials, pleading anonymity, indicated that the loco pilot may have also assumed he had already pushed the lever to a stop and ruled out any “brake failure” considering that the express train had already travelled more than 600 km travelling at an average of 120 kmph halting at more than 15 stations en route.
“The first set of loco-pilot and assistant loco-pilot steered the train from Tambaram till Vijayawada and there were no complaints whatsoever. In the second stage from Vijayawada to Secunderabad and then onto Hyderabad, the train was under control. Otherwise, the train could have crashed at a much higher speed leading to a bigger mishap,” said senior officials.
A vast majority of the passengers of the train usually disembark at Secunderabad station and there were said to be less than 100 passengers when the bogies — S2, S3 & S6 — had derailed at Hyderabad. Railway authorities quickly ensured that the remaining passengers were safely moved out of the train and repair work commenced on the track, while the damaged coaches were moved to maintenance by later afternoon with the relief measures undertaken by teams led by Additional General Manager R. Dhananjayalu
Later in the evening, Chief Public Relations Officer Ch. Rakesh informed that the incident did not impact the regular train movements at the station. The return journey of the affected train or Train No.12760 Hyderabad to Tambaram Charminar Express also started as per the scheduled time of 6 p.m. The Commissioner of Rail Safety (CRS) will be holding a statutory enquiry into the incident and till it is completed, both the loco-pilots will be benched.
