NAWABSHAH: The Shalimar Express train escaped, fortunately for all onboard, which could have turned out to be a major accident when a truck parked on a railway track in Shaheed Benazirabad district on Friday.
All the passengers and the Pakistan Railways staff remained unscathed in the incident, which occurred at Talpur railway crossing. The truck was destroyed.
According to the railway officials and police, the track was badly damaged due to the impact of the collision and it took the railways staff over three hours to repair the track. The movement of trains through that track remained suspended until the repair was finished.
Railway Assistant Engineer Maqsood Larik said that as the train was approaching the gateman began to close the gate but before he could shut it completely the dumper driver hastily drove the gravel-loaded truck onto the tracks. Hence, the gateman started waving the flag to alert the driver and helped him [the driver] avert a possible disaster, he said.
The train driver, Abdul Ghaffar, told reporters that the train was moving at 180 km per hour when he noticed the truck stuck up across the tracks and the gateman waving the flag to alert him of the danger.
He immediately applied emergency brakes about 800 meters from the truck, which significantly slowed down the train and resultantly, the relatively low-scale impact saved the train from a major accident.
The police said that the truck developed a fault while crossing the track and its driver left his vehicle over the track being insensitive to a likely accident with a train.
The Shalimar Express was going to Lahore when it met the accident. The truck driver fled the scene while rescue teams and railway officials rushed to rescue and provide relief to passengers.
