Premium AC Special Rajdhani Hits Cattle And Comes To a Halt :(
Date: December 29, 2013
Time: 17:23
Location: Umroli
An unfortunate incident happened today when I ventured out to capture the 22913 Mumbai Central...
more... - New Delhi Premium Rajdhani. In this video you can see how the train negotiates a curve at 120 kmph, passes at full blast past me and suddenly slows down and comes to a halt. The reason for this was a stray cattle that was hit by the Ghaziabad WAP 5 30026 and blown to pieces. You can probably see the dead animal lying by the tracks if you notice carefully. Really sad. Cattle hits like these seem to be very common in this stretch and is probably one of the reasons we do not see the maximum permissible speed being upgraded to 130 or 140 kmph. Minutes before this happened, I had shooed away another animal that had strayed on to the tracks. I however did not see this one at all. Notice how the LP honks continuously to scare the animal away - in vain.
The train left within 5 minutes after this halt. I am unsure if there was any severe damage to the loco due to this.