An alert cabin man possibly averted the disaster when he noticed a diesel multiple unit (DMU) consisting of three bogies moving towards Jalandhar with no crew or passengers on board. He immediately swung into action and took the rake on a dead line. All the three bogies derailed after the train hit the dead end without causing any loss of lives.

Due to the derailment, overhead electric wires snapped when the Jhelum Express, running on a parallel track, was passing the section.

The driver of the Express train immediately applied the brakes and brought the train to a halt, a Railway spokesman said.

Fortunately, the runaway rake derailed on the side opposite to the rail line on which Jhelum Express was moving, thus averting a possiblecollision.

A Northern Railway official said that the DMU, which was stationed at a platform at Ludhiana railway station, was scheduled to leave for Jalandhar at 5.50 a.m., but suddenly took off on its own without the driver.

``Luckily, there was also no passenger on board the train,'' he said.The driver of the DMU has been taken into custody and investigations into the incident are on, the official said.

Train traffic was held up for several hours, delaying the Punjab Mail, the Chhattisgarh Express, the Jhelum Express and the Morie Express.

Rail traffic was later restored and a team of specialists to pull out the badly-damaged rake had arrived from Ambala, he added.

However, according to the GRPF personnel at the station, they, alongwith nearly 25 passengers, were inside the train when the accident occurred. They said they had received minor injuries. The Railway authorities, however, denied these claims.