On October 29, the front nose of the Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat Express was damaged yet again. The newly-inducted train got into a cattle runover incident near Atul under Mumbai Central division.
A bull was hit, said the Railway officials, adding that the Gujarat-bound train was detained for 15 minutes.
The officials in their statement on the incident said, "There is no damage to the train, except damage on nose cone cover of front coach i.e Driver coach. The train is running smoothly. This will be attended to at the earliest."
"The incident occured at 08.17 hrs and the Train was detained for about 15 minutes" said an official of Western Railway, adding that the damage will be attended in Mumbai Central carshed after the train returns to Mumbai in evening.
The train will be departing from Gandhinagar at 2.05 pm and reach Mumbai Central by 8.38 pm.
The incident is third one in a month. Previously, the Vande Bharat express was damaged after it rammed into cattle on October 7 once again and suffered minor damage to its nose panel after hitting a cow.
It was the second incident reported in two days. Earlier, the nose portion of the front coach of the semi-high-speed train was damaged after colliding with a herd of buffaloes between Vatva and Maninagar railway stations in Gujarat on October 6, a day after it's launch.
Collision with cattle on the tracks unavoidable
According to a Western Railway official, collision with cattle on the tracks is unavoidable in the current situation and this has been kept in mind while designing the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat train. “To prevent cattle from being run over, work of fencing of the track between Mumbai-Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad is in full swing and will be completed by March 2024,” the official said.
Congress leader slams Union govt
Congress youth wing chief Srinivas BV sharing the news wrote, "If only CM Modi had commented 'There is a competition between the Rupee and Vande Bharat express'."
