Fresh horror: Train engine leaves behind bogies, thrice

New Delhi: Yet another accident hit the railways on Friday when coaches of the Varanasi-bound Shivganga Express decoupled thrice en-route to its destination from the national capital. The incident comes barely a day after three derailments on Thursday.

However, despite this, the railways ministry, headed by newly-inducted minister Piyush Goyal, just announced cosmetic measures like installation of GPS trackers in all hand-pushed trolleys used to inspect the tracks.

In a letter to all zonal railways on September 6, the railway board has said installation of such systems should be completed within a month.

Mr Goyal had on Thursday held a meeting of top officials of his ministry following the three derailments, including that of the Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani Express. Besides the Rajdhani, seven coaches of the Shaktipunj Express had also derailed near Sonebhadra and derailment of Kalindi Express was also averted in Farrukhabad after a crack in the rail tracks was detected in time.

On Friday, passengers on board the Shiv Ganga Express had a narrow escape when its coaches decoupled from the engine thrice over a stretch of just 44 km.

Officials here said that no one was injured in the accident. In addition, Thursday also saw derailment of two wagons of a goods train near Khand-ala in Maharashtra. Many parts of the coupling that connects coaches had worn away and needed replacement, something which obviously was not carried out.

A goods wagon engine was later attached to the train and it was sent to Manduadeeh railway station. By then, however, the train had been delayed by more than seven hours.

The reason why former railway minister Suresh Prabhu was replaced with Mr Goyal was seemingly his inability to control the spate of accidents that had hit railways over the last more than and year.

Shortly before the Cabinet reshuffle, Mr Prabhu had offered to quit following the derailment on August 20 of 14 coaches of the Kalinga-Utkal Puri Haridwar Express in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district which had killed at least 23 people.

Just three days after that around 100 passengers were injured after an unauthorised dumper crossed the railway fence and hit the Delhi-bound Kaifiyat Express in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh.