Jaynagar-Darbhanga-Puri Express travels without engine for 2 km
The driver of the Jaynagar-Darbhanga-Puri Express had immediately detected the detachment and increased the speed of the engine to avert a possible collision from the train’s coaches rolling behind it at a considerable pace.
Twenty-two coaches of Jaynagar-Darbhanga-Puri Express (18420) carrying hundreds of passengers rolled forward for about two kilometres when its engine got detached between Jaynagar and Khajauli stations on Darbhanga Samastipur section under East Central Railway (ECR) on Saturday morning.
The incident occurred soon after the train left Jaynagar at 5 am for the next stoppage Madhubani. The engineless coaches travelled about two kilometres. The passengers on board were caught unawares and they came to know of this only when the train slowed down and finally stopped near Behta village at an outer signal — half a kilometre away from Khajauli station, which is not a stoppage for the train, said station master of Khajauli, Awdhesh Kumar.
He said the driver of the locomotive had immediately detected it (the detachment) and increased the speed of the engine to avert a possible collision from the train’s coaches rolling behind it at a considerable pace. The driver stopped the engine at the first station Khajauli, a distance of 12 kilometres from Jaynagar, at around 5.10 am. The higher-ups were immediately informed of the incident.
After instructions from the higher-ups, the engine was sent back on the same track and it was attached with the 22 stranded coaches to proceed towards the onward journey after an approximate delay of 50 minutes.
“The engine got detached from the train possibly due to the snapping of the coupling or some mechanical fault,” said a railway official familiar with the matter. Senior divisional commercial manager (DCM) of Samastipur, Birendra Kumar said an inquiry into the incident has been ordered and the railways safety and mechanical department will investigate the case. Call it a coincidence, the incident comes close on the heels of a similar case when 22 coaches of the Ahmedabad-Puri Express with hundreds of passengers on board travelled about 13 kilometres without an engine from Titlagarh in Balangir district to Kesinga in Kalahandi district in Odisha on April 7 night earlier this year.
