Train loses track, turns up at wrong station

It Passed Through 3 Stations Before Reaching Warangal Where The Gaffe Was Noticed

This news item was published in The Times of India on 08th September 2011

Vijayawada: Once an atheist from Japan toured India. After returning home, he wrote: “Now, I strongly believe that God exists. Otherwise, it is not humanly possible to see the trains running and criss-crossing all over India.” Though it could have been a cruel joke, the Indian Railways has always lived up to the adage.

In a hilarious incident, an express train lost its way and ended up at a wrong destination and the authorities realised the mistake only after the passengers started screaming about the train’s “changed” path. Curiously, the train passed through three railway divisions before the gaffe was noticed and top bosses in all the three divisions were now searching for ‘scapegoats’ at the field level to escape the axe.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which runs special trains between pilgrim destinations, planned a train from Tirupati to Varanasi via Bhubaneswar. The special train left Tirupati around 7 pm on Tuesday and reached Vijayawada at 8.30 am on Wednesday. Around 1 pm, the train chugged into Kazipet station in Warangal, even as the bewildered passengers looked on helplessly.

The furious passengers informed the station authorities, who immediately alerted the divisional officers at Secunderabad. The mistake was noticed only after a divisional operations manager in Secunderabad swung into action and asked the authorities at Vijayawada to revert the train to Vijayawada for its onward journey to Bhubaneswar via Vizag section. Since it was a special train, many of the on-duty staffers were not aware of the train schedule either.

While the train was given clearance to chug back to Vijayawada much to the delight of the harried passengers, the top officials of Guntakal, Vijayawada and Secunderabad divisions had three-hour teleconference wherein it was found that a communication gap had led the train on to the wrong route. The authorities at the Guntakal division (under which Tirupati station functions), who handed over the train to Vijayawada division officials at Renigunta station, had wrongly mentioned the destination station code resulting in the chaos.

They mentioned the code of Bilaspur station (BSP) instead of Bhubaneswar (BBS) during the handing over of the train chart, leading the officials at Vijayawada to allow the train to take the Warangal route for the journey to Bilaspur. The train left Gudur station around midnight.

“We have allowed the train to take the Warangal section as it was the original route for Bilaspur. There was no fault on our part,” defended a senior official at Vijayawada station.

After realising the major goof up, the authorities brought the train back to Vijayawada to proceed to Bhubaneswar for its onward journey to Varanasi. “No senior official could not notice the mistake immediately as it was not a scheduled train,” said a senior official. In fact, even passengers had no clue about the wrong path as several of them were in deep sleep after the train left Vijayawada.

Warangal station superintendent Jayakumar requisitioned a separate engine to change the direction of the special train after nearly 1,000 passengers rushed to his cabin. “I do not know as to who has allowed the train in Warangal section. But once Vijayawada division cleared the signal for the special train, we allowed it travel back,” he said.

“Though the journey was agonizing, we thank our stars that the train did not run into another train though it had taken the wrong route,” said a passenger, trying to steal a smile.