It would have made a fantastic Hollywood script. A train engine starts travelling without a loco pilot. Stations are asked to clear signals and tracks. A railway staffer chases the engine. On a bike. The engine slows down. The bike-borne staffer is eventually able to catch up with it, gets on board, and stops it.
But this wasn’t the product of a writer’s imagination. It actually happened in Karnataka’s Wadi district.
Railway officials said the electric engine of a Chennai-Mumbai train which arrived at Wadi station at 3 pm began moving on its own due to a slip up, after the loco pilot got off. (The route from Wadi to Solapur in Maharashtra isn’t electrified, and a diesel engine needed to be attached to the bogies for their onward journey)
The engine had travelled 13 kilometres before the Bollywood-style chase ended near Nalwar. But why did the engine begin to move in the first place? It happens only in India.
Officials said that wasn’t clear. They said an special team was conducting an inquiry.
