Vande Bharat runs over stray bull, carcass halts Haldia Express
Agra: Stray cattle menace continues to affect smooth railway traffic in Uttar Pradesh as another bull was run over by the superfast Vande Bharat Express on Friday. The impact of the collision threw the carcass to the opposite side of the track which halted another cruising express train bound for national capital.
The incident took place at 9 am near Etawah junction when Vande Bharat Express was heading towards Varanasi. After the incident, Vande Bharat was delayed by nine minutes, but the cattle carcass thrown to the opposite side of the track due to the collision impact damaged the pressure hose of Anand Vihar bound Haldia Express which was already running nearly three hours late.
Station superintendent of Etawah railway station, P L Meena, said, “As soon as Vande Bharat left Etawah junction after the cattle collision at 9:09 am, Haldia Express coming from the opposite direction rammed into the bull’s carcass. The train was delayed by 40 minutes.” However, according to sources, the Haldia Express was delayed for nearly two hours, as another electric locomotive was brought from Tundla to pull the train whose engine had failed due to the collision impact.
Station superintendent of Etawah railway station, P L Meena, said, “As soon as Vande Bharat left Etawah junction after the cattle collision at 9:09 am, Haldia Express coming from the opposite direction rammed into the bull’s carcass. The train was delayed by 40 minutes.” However, according to sources, the Haldia Express was delayed for nearly two hours, as another electric locomotive was brought from Tundla to pull the train whose engine had failed due to the collision impact.
Station house officer, railway protection force, Etawah, Vinod Dixit, said, “Our teams conduct regular patrolling near the tracks and station premises, but cattle are still found on railway tracks. There is a need of barbed wire or fencing along the tracks to avoid cattle movement.”
Notably, 4,317 stray cattle run over cases were reported by speeding trains in the past two years on the 808 km stretch between Ghaziabad and Mughalsarai (Pandit DeenDayal Upadhyaya Junction) of north central railway zone (NCR zone). According to data, on certain days, the railway reported 22 cases of cattle run-over in a day. As a result, a total of 14,407 trains faced a combined delay of 2,566 minutes.
Interestingly, Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai railway corridor pass via 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh, where in recent months local villagers, agitated with stray cattle menace locked bovine in government primary schools in Mathura, Aligarh, Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri and Etawah, among other places.
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