Trackman's red towel saves lives of train passengers
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NEW DELHI: Quick thinking by two trackmen averted a major train disaster in the heart of the city on Tuesday. Priyaswami (60) and Ram Niwas (55), while examining the railway tracks between Yamuna Bridge and Tilak Bridge, spotted a six-inch gap on a section of track on which the Shiv Ganga Express was approaching at high speed. Priyaswami ran towards the train, waving his red gamchha to alert the driver. The train came to a stop a few metres before the gap.
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Ram Niwas, it wasn't the first time that he had helped avert a disaster. Three years ago, he had spotted a similar gap on another stretch and alerted his seniors and the train was stopped. This time, however, neither Priyaswami nor Ram Niwas had a phone to call the station master.
Priyaswami said the two were inspecting the tracks around 7.55am when they spotted the gap on the track. "I could make out from the metal's silver colour that it was a fresh break. The train would have instantly derailed had it passed over the gap," said Priyaswami.
"We only had only a few minutes before the Shiv Ganga Express from Varanasi would cross the stretch. We could hear the train siren at a distance and had to alert the driver. I had a gamchha while Ram Niwas was carrying a worn-out red flag," said Priyaswami.
The two men started waving, hoping the driver would spot them and hit the brakes.
It takes at least 100 metres for a train to stop if it is travelling at a speed of 50-60 kmph. You can’t slam its brakes like a car to make it stop. We had to keep that in mind as well,” explained Ram Niwas.
Soon they spotted the train on Yamuna Bridge and called out to the driver to stop. “Had the train been running at a higher speed, it would have run us over since the line had a small curve. We had to take the risk,” said Ram Niwas.
Fortunately the driver spotted the two trackmen and slowed the engine. The train came to a stop metres away from the gap. “We let out a sigh of relief. The driver stepped out and thanked us,” said Priyaswami. It took workers about one and a half hours to repair the tracks.
“We have decided to reward the two gangmen for this. The train was packed with passengers at the time of the incident,” said R N Singh, deputy railway manager, Northern Railway.
Ram Niwas recalls that even during a previous incident, he had managed to alert the train driver by running almost five hundred metres on the tracks. “I had the safety of the passengers in mind all this while. I have seen train accidents at my hometown in Bihar and know the cause behind it. I can never let such a thing to happen while I am supervising a stretch,” said Ram Niwas before leaving for his daily patrol duties.