Mum-Ahmedabad Tejas Exp flagged off: Light panel falls off, none hurt

Indian Railway’s second privately operated outstation train, and the first such train from the city — the Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Tejas Express — was flagged off

Indian Railway’s second privately operated outstation train, and the first such train from the city — the Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Tejas Express — was flagged off by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani on Friday. However, during the inaugural run, an acrylic panel in the train fell. Nobody was injured in the incident.

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An acrylic panel is used to support lights on the ceiling. One of these panels fell between passengers’ seats in one of the two executive coaches, narrowly missing Subash Chandra Dubey. “I was travelling with my family. All the services provided in the train were very nice but I got scared when the panel fell,” said Dubey. The panel was fixed by technicians present on-board.

Thorough maintenance and inspection of the train will be conducted by Indian Rail Catering Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Western Railway (WR) and Rail Coach Factory (Kapurthala) technicians before the train begins its commercial operations on January 19. “The train was handed over to us by RCF and the fittings were inspected by them. After the incident, we will check the fittings and all safety aspects before the express’s first commercial run,” said a senior IRCTC official.

Meanwhile, MNS Railway Kamgar Sena, a union affiliated to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), has demanded that the name of the train should be displayed in Marathi, in addition to English, Hindi and Gujarati. A delegation of the union led by Jitendra Patil also objected to Gujarati food being served on the train and staff members wearing Gujarati dress, and submitted its memorandum to WR divisional railway manager and IRCTC.