An empty gas truck veered off from the Mumbai-Nashik national highway in Maharashtra after suffering a tyre burst and came on the parallel railway tracks on Monday evening, forcing the suspension of traffic on the Kasara-Kalyan section which resulted in holding up of some long-distance and suburban trains for almost two hours, officials said.
According to officials, a major tragedy was averted thanks to alertness shown by track maintainer Dilip Wagh who reported the incident to the control room through a senior section engineer and the traffic was immediately stopped.
Fortunately, no train was passing when the incident occurred near Atgaon station, around 95 km from here, they said, adding trains on both Up and Down tracks were just a station behind.
The Central Railway said the incident occurred between Asangaon and Atgaon stations around 7.30 pm.
"A gas tanker truck from the road entered on the tracks between Atgaon- Asangaon section. For safety reasons the Up and Down lines in the northeast section have been suspended for traffic from 7.40 pm onwards," said Shivaji Sutar, chief public relations officer, Central railway.
Sutar said the help of the Maharashtra Disaster Control was sought for removal of the gas tanker from the tracks, apart from sending railway's relief cranes and vehicles to the spot.
"Road cranes and other relief trains/vehicles have been moved to clear the section as soon as possible," Sutar said.
The tanker was removed from the tracks with the help of cranes.
"Down line traffic (trains going towards Kasara side) resumed at 9.10 pm and Up line at 9.30 pm," Sutar said, adding over half a dozen long-distance trains and some suburban locals were detained owing to the incident.
According to railway officials, the gas tanker was empty and hence they did not face much difficulty in removing it from the tracks.
"Due to the tyre burst, the tanker veered off from the Mumbai-Nashik highway and came on the railway tracks," said a Central Railway official.
Officials said police will investigate the incident.
