Subject: My train derailed yesterday.
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:10:54 +0500
From: Karthik Giddu <gidduk@vsnl.com>
To: irfca@cs.umd.edu
HI Gang,
First hand information on my train(1063 Dadar Chennai Express) derailment at Ambarnath(3 stations beyond Kalyan on the Bombay-Pune link)
I was to go Madras after 1 yr gap to see my cousins. I boarded the train at 7.50 at the dadar termius. I had booked a 3AC berth. The train started on time and reached Kalyan at 8.55 pm. My tickets were checked my the TC, I gave order for night dinner and morning breakfast before Kalyan had arrived. I even got the beddings. After 10 minutes stop i started again and went on smoothly and with 20 minutes in to the journey from Kalyan, all of sudden my coach started to rumble violently. It lasted for 20-30 seconds(like an earthquake) and the last thing i knew as we had derailed and the coach was dangling at a angle of 30-35 degrees. All the people in my bay/coach were shaken apart and screaming. My coach was 5th from the engine. I got on the coach quickly and gave a helping hand to get the people wanting to come out. The 4th coach from the engine a hybrid coach(2AC and 1AC combined) slightly hit the station and bore the burnt of the derailment. The doors got jammed and windows had to be broken to get the people out of there. Near by people in 5 minutes got cowbars and broke the windows of the coach. They only gave us our luguages still trapped inside our coaches. All the people in my coach were safe with no injuries. The loco(WCAM3) and 2 coaches went 40-50 meters before stopping. The 2AC coach(3rd from engine) was standing upright, it had not derailed.
I took 5 photos of the scene. But it will take some time for me to put it on my site as i need to complete the roll!!!!!!!!!
As I take in Kandivli(Western suburb), afterwards I took a auto and reached Kalyan Station expecting the local trains to work.... But sadly no trains were operating for the 10 minutes I stayed in the platform and no annoucement were made about the operating the trains. The only annoucement was that train services between and Kalyan and Ambarnath has been suspended till further notice. I had my this time made friendship with one of the co-passengers. So we took one more auto to take me to Mulund. From there we took a taxi to reach our place, he got down at Andheri and I later reached my house at 1.20 am(the time I should be somewhere near Daund)
I spent from Ambarnath the 3/4 eqivalent of the Bombay-Madras 3AC fare around Rs 700 to reach home.
I was cursing the CR for doing nothing to help the passengers enough though it a local bound for VT was standing but no annoucement was made about when that train will depart. I end my tru e-life story here.
Karthik
