Tracks at Balasore accident site repaired: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
By Sudam Patra
Balasore, June 5: The Government of India on Sunday said that both the Up and Down railway tracks at Bahanaga in Odisha’s Balasore accident site have been repaired.
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted that track linking Up-line has been restored and overhead electrification work has also started.
“Track linking of Up-line has been done at 16.45 hours. Overhead electrification work started,” Vaishnaw tweeted on Sunday.
He had earlier tweeted that the down line which links Howrah has been restored.
Officials said this implies that at least one set of railway tracks were now fit for trains, but more time will be required to fix all tracks, which include loop lines, at the Balasore accident site.
However, till the overhead electric cables are repaired, only diesel locomotives can be run on the two lines which have been repaired.
Once the overhead electric lines are repaired, electric trains can start plying. They indicated that this would take another three days.
Three trains Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah super fast and a goods train were involved in the pile-up on Friday, being described as one of India’s worst train accidents.
The Coromandel Express rammed into a stationary goods train and many of its carriages overturned including some onto another train, the Bengaluru-Howrah superfast express, which was also passing by at the same time on Friday.
