TRAIN STARTS MOVING DURING REPAIR, GUARD ESCAPES UNHURT

A guard of a train running between Howrah and Bengal’s popular beach town of Digha had a miraculous escape on Friday after the train started moving while he was under the carriage trying to fix a pipe that had detached.

The Digha-bound Howrah-Digha Express moved some distance with Railway Protection Force personnel frantically shouting, trying to catch the attention of the driver.

The incident happened around 11.30 am on Friday, about 20 minutes after the train left Howrah. The guard, SN Roy, had gone under the coach to inspect the reason it had stopped suddenly. He detected that the air pressure brake system had a snag and was fixing it.

As soon as he coupled the pipe, the train started moving. He then hung onto a pipe under the carriage. After the train stopped, he got off it, unhurt.

The RPF has issued a statement that its constable Swarup Dutta, who had reached the spot, “maintained his calm and immediately, collected the walkietalkie from the guard stuck in between the moving train. He ran beside the moving train with the walkie-talkie in his hands and contacted the train driver shouting at him to immediately stop the train.” But the train kept moving.

Dutta’s screams prompted an RPF personnel on the train to pull the alarm chain, bringing the train to an immediate halt.

“We have ordered for an inquiry into the incident. Prima facie, we suspect that it happened because of lack of communication between the guard and the driver,” said Sanjoy Ghosh, spokesperson of South Eastern Railway, but railways did not reveal the name of the driver.

KOLKATA: RAILWAY ORDERS PROBE BUT DIDN’T REVEAL NAME OF DRIVER. LACK OF COORDINATION IS SUSPECTED AS CAUSE