Nearly a week after the new Vande Bharat Express train between Mumbai Central and Gandhinagar was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the train suffered minor damages on Thursday morning after it hit cattle on tracks in Gujarat.
The incident occurred at 11.18 am between Gairatpur and Vatva stations.
The train sustained damage after it collided with a herd of buffaloes and had to travel the remaining distance without a nose cover. No functional part of the train was damaged and it was able to resume its run arriving at its destination with a 30-minute delay. No passengers were hurt in the accident.
“Two or three buffaloes died in the Vande Bharat clash,” said Jitendra Jayant, senior public relations officer (PRO) for the Western Railway, Ahmedabad division. He added that the driver couldn’t have applied the brakes because that would have caused a bigger accident that could have endangered the lives of the passengers. The train was running at about 140 km/hr.
“The nose cone cover of the front coach was replaced with a new one in Mumbai Central depot during the maintenance and the train is put back into service without any extra downtime. We’re taking all actions to prevent such types of incidents in future,” Western Railway Chief Public Relations Officer said.
The indigenously designed and manufactured semi-high-speed train, the third service under the Vande Bharat series, was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 30 from Gandhinagar Capital and it started the commercial run from the next day.
Vande Bharat Express trains already run on Delhi-Varanasi and Delhi-Katra routes.
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