First head on collision in South Central Railway history

Hyderabad: Monday's head-on collision at Kacheguda is considered to be the first such incident in the history of South Central Railway (SCR), which was established more than five decades ago in 1966.

An MMTS train hit an Intercity Express train in Kacheguda station on Monday morning. Due to impact of collision, three bogies of the MMTS train derailed and as many as 15 passengers were injured in the accident "Such train collision incidents were witnessed in some of the 18 railway zones in the country in the recent past but it did not happen in SCR jurisdiction. This was the first time two trains had a head-on collision in our zone," said an official.

It may be mentioned here that SCR zone is spread over the states of Telangana, Maharashtra and parts of Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, a major part of Andhra Pradesh was also under SCR, but now it has been included in the South Coast Railway Zone.

Ch Shankar, the general secretary of SCRMU (SCR Mazdoor Union) who worked from the beginning of SCR creation in 1966 until his retirement in 2005, also said no single incident of head-on collision took place in the last five decades in this zone.

He, however, said that there were a few instances of trains being observed on the same track on a few occasions, but accidents were averted due to alertness of drivers. "Loco pilots reacted in nick of time and averted accidents a few times if I could recall. But never there was any collision between two trains," he said.