Train collision: Traffic to be restored by Saturday

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The traffic on Kalyan-Kasara section of the Central Railway in Thane district of Maharashtra, affected due to the collision between an Express and a local train on Thursday night, will be fully restored by early Saturday morning, a top official said.

One person was killed, four were injured seriously, and nine sustained minor injuries when Mumbai-Gondia Vidarbha Express collided with derailed bogeys of a local train between Kasara and Umbermali last night.

Officials had put the death toll at three earlier, which was later revised downward to one.

"We will open one of the two lines by Friday mid-night and the second one by Saturday morning," Central Railway General Manager Subodh Jain told agencies at the accident site.

In the meanwhile, some of the long-distance trains will run via Manmad.

According to Jain, the mishap occurred after the loco pilot of Vidarbha Express applied emergency brakes on spotting the derailed local train on the the tracks.

The time lag between the derailed local train coming to a halt and the collision was only 1.17 seconds, and the loco pilot did the best possible thing by applying the brakes, he said, adding that this resulted in one of the bogeys of Vidarbha Express piling up on top of another.

Asked if anti-collision device could have averted the incident, Jain said, "It is very unlikely for an automatic system to be effective even in the slim time lag. Manual intervention was the best possible action in such situation."

A CR statement said that Mumbai-Bhusawal Passenger (51153) and its return service have been cancelled, while Gorakhpur LTT Superfast train (12541) will be terminated at Nashik Road and Secunderabad-Mumbai Devgiri Express (17058) will be terminated at Manmad on Friday.

The relief staff of Central Railway and other agencies were working ferociously through the night to reestablish the rail-contact between Mumbai and a large part of central India.

In order to get the twin lines on the Kalyan-Kasara section fully operational by Saturday morning, the Railway staff has a long list of things to do.

For starters, the mangled bogeys of Vidarbha Express as well as the local train will have to be removed.

The damaged tracks and overhead equipment would have to be repaired.

During the night, the relief workers who trickled in from every possible direction were successful in bringing down the coach S-10, which had climbed on to another coach due to pressure created by the hard braking.

Then heavy-duty cranes swung into action to clear the tracks. The work will continue through the day, officials on the spot said.