What were the circumstances that brought about this kind of unpleasant incident? Could this have wholly or partially been a technical issue? This was somewhat of a failure of the Indian Railways’ traffic controlling system – and it certainly looks very unconventional and unattractive. After all, a train in motion almost never stops to run and certainly never looks back.
However, this one incident left everyone in disarray.
A weekly special Lucknow-bound train was wrongly put on the track to Allahabad. It arrived at Kanpur Junction from Mumbai. From there, the train even reached the Shanti Nagar crossing. It was then that the staff realised the grave mistake and worked out a plan to rectify the error. The mistake was corrected by calling back the train after blocking that route.
In my opinion, this was a case of wrong beam-signalling. We are used to listening to stories of people boarding the wrong train. Due to lack of proper information about trains, people often commit such mistakes. When they learn of this, it’s generally too late. They have to get off the train at another station. Some even resort to chain-pulling or try to jump of the train, if it is moving slow. They resort to such risky methods simply because the train could not be brought back.
However, in this case, there was no other alternative but to bring the train back. If that train had not been redirected to Kanpur Central, then it couldn’t have gone to Lucknow. Ultimately, it was the passengers who had to face the brunt of the Railways’ mistake. The train was delayed by hours. Was this not an aberration of a serious nature?
The movement of trains in India depends majorly on the signalling system. This was a case of route redirection. It was not the layman’s fault but the Railways’ experienced hands that did this type of blunder. The only thing that was satisfying is the fact that the authorities rectified the mistake in time.