One passenger lost his life while seven others sustained injuries when the Kalka-Shimla Holiday Special train derailed on the World Heritage railway route, on its first trip of the season. The accident occurred near Dharampur railway station on Sunday morning. The deceased, Surinder Singh (23), was a first year student of Bachelor of Arts at the Government College for Men in Sector 11, Chandigarh. Surinder was on a holiday trip to Shimla with cousin Narinder and a friend, Devesh.

The train left for Shimla at 6.10 am with 30 passengers on board. Around 8.15 am, the train reached a curve in Tunnel No. 27, about a kilometre from the Dharampur railway station, when the engine and three coaches got derailed.

The injured were rushed to the Dharampur Community Health Centre from where six were discharged after first-aid, while a severely injured Vandana Pandey (34), a resident of Baltana, was referred to the PGI in Chandigarh. The six injured are Ravi Pratap Pandey; Sangeeta Tiwari, a resident of Chandigarh; R K Tiwari, Sergeant, Indian Air Force, posted in West Bengal; Sadhu Das (40), Jhilik Das (17) and Rothim Das, all residents of West Bengal.

According to Vinod Kumar, who was driving the train, the derailment occurred because of a boulder on the track. The passengers, however, said the train was speeding. “The train was running at a high speed. After it reached the tunnel, the driver could not maintain balance while negotiating a curve. Suddenly we heard loud noises and felt a massive jerk. All passengers fell off their seats and there were screams and cries all over,” said Rothim Das, one of the injured passengers.

Surinder reportedly fell off the train and was crushed between the wall of the tunnel and one of the derailed coaches. His postmortem report is expected on Monday. His friend Devesh, too, said the train was speeding. “It was a new engine and it appeared that the driver was testing its capacity. We could feel that the train was not being run in a balanced manner.”

Ravi Pratap Pandey, an insurance agent and husband of Vandana who is admitted at the PGI, said: “My wife was sitting on a window seat. When the train got derailed and coaches rammed the tunnel’s walls, her right foot’s fingers were badly crushed. My two sons escaped unhurt. The train was being driven at a high speed.”

Divisional Railway Manager (Ambala) H K Jaggi, meanwhile, cited landslides as the reason for the derailment. “According to the driver, the train was derailed because of a boulder on the track. There have been a number of landslides in this area in the recent past. But, we are inquiring into the matter. As far as the passengers are concerned, we arranged for taxis to take them to the next station.” R K Kardam, Commissioner, Railway Safety, New Delhi, has been asked to conduct an inquiry into the incident.

The rail traffic on the route was affected as the Northern Railway authorities failed to clear the track even after 10 hours of the accident. Till the filing of this report, they were making efforts to put the derailed back on the track. All trains on the route have been cancelled till further orders.

‘I had asked him not to go’
Surinder Singh, the Mohali resident who lost his life, would have been alive had he listened to his father’s pleas to cancel his Shimla trip. “I kept on asking him not to go, but he did not budge. Narinder called me around 8.30 am and said Surinder is admitted at the health centre. I reached Dharampur and found my son’s body lying on a stretcher,” said an inconsolable Balbir Singh.

Major tragedy averted
The place, where the train’s engine finally came to a halt after it got derailed, was merely six feet away from the edge of a 200-metre deep gorge. The engine rammed the wall of the tunnel and then hit the hillock before coming to a halt.

Rs 25,000 for deceased’s family
While the Solan district administration has announced Rs 10,000 for Surinder’s family, the Railways announced a compensation of Rs 15,000. For seriously injured Vandana Pandey, both the district administration and the railways announced Rs 5,000 each. For the other injured, the administration announced Rs 2,000 each and the railways announced Rs 500 each as compensation.