Toofan Express on Tuesday afternoon did not meet the fate of Capital Express.A timely alarm raised by a local resident near Patna Sahib station prevented the Howrah- bound train from getting derailed at a place where the Danapur- Kamakhya Junction Capital Express jumped tracks on October 16.Sudhir Kumar, one of the first few local people who spotted the crack in the tracks, said: " I stay near the tracks in Gulzarbagh and was going out for some work along with my friends. It was about 11.30am when we saw the crack. We all got worried because a few weeks back we have witnessed the accident when an express train had derailed at the same place. As soon as we saw this, we did not wait any further and called all local people.Within half an hour, many of them gathered here and we all sat on the tracks. Some people brought red...
more... flags and put it on the tracks so that we can send a timely signal to the drivers.
It was successful and around 200 metres away from the tracks, we managed to stop Toofan Express." Mehboob Alam, another local resident, added: " We do not know when the crack occurred because many other trains, including the Himigiri and Janshatabdi, passed before the Toofan. We just wanted that another accident does not take place at the same spot." The train, coming from Shri Ganganagar, was stopped there for one- and- a- half hours and did not depart until the railway technicians came to repair the tracks. The process also delayed some trains on the Patna- Mokama section in Delhi- Howrah main line.
Passengers travelling in the train also looked tense as it was surrounded by around 600 people. In the beginning, they thought it was some kind of attack on the train.
" I got scared when the train was stopped just at the middle of the tracks. I thought it was some kind of attack by the local people because I could hear some loud noise from a distance. Just to check what went wrong, I got down and saw this huge crowd gathered just in front of the locomotive.
Later, I came to know from the local people that there is a crack ahead on the track. We are lucky that no unfortunate incident happened to us otherwise, I really do not know what was waiting for us," said Amrit Raj, a passenger.
Initially, the railway technicians temporarily repaired the track to pass the Toofan Express. It took almost 15 minutes to pass the train through the cracked portion.
Asked about the reason of crack in the track, a railway expert in East Central Railway ( ECR) said on condition of anonymity: " This type of crack is called rail fracture and it normally happens during the process of melting steel while making the tracks.
Contamination takes place in the process resulting into bubbles in the steel. The bubbles later create gaps in the tracks.
It is a kind of defect while constructing the tracks." Around 5pm, the track was repaired completely for smooth running of trains.
Repeated attempts to contact Danapur divisional railway manager N. K. Gupta turned futile.