Except for minor hiccup, Tejas makes smooth debut

An overhead light panel fell on elderly citizen at Vadodara, but luckily he was not injured

The maiden run of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas Express was marked by a minor incident — an overhead light panel fell on a senior citizen passenger shortly after the train was flagged off from Ahmedabad by Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani at 10.45am on Friday. The semi-high speed train halts only at Nadiad, Vadodara, Bharuch, Surat, Vapi and Borivli.

Apart from the falling of the tubelight cover at Vadodara in which luckily the passenger suffered no injury, several passengers from the executive car complained of non-functional infotainment screens. “The railway should have checked the train thoroughly before the inaugural run. I am a diabetic person and heart patient. It would have banged my head and injured me,” said Subhashchandra Dube, 77, a retired engineer.

Rahul Himalayan, GM, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) said it was a minor incident. “Since it has been over a year the train has been in operation, there is a chance some parts may have loosened causing the fixture to fall. A final check will be done before it sets iff its return journey from Mumbai,” he said.

IRCTC also made the journey memorable for three passengers by celebrating their birthdays by cutting cakes with co-passengers.

Tejas Express scheduled to cover the distance in 6.30 hours, once its commercial operation start from Jan 19. It is fully AC and has two executive class chair cars with 56 seats each and eight chair cars with a capacity to seat 78 each. Its total capacity will be 736 passengers. The train departed from Ahmedabad with a lot of funfare.