Alert helps train save jumbos in nick of time Rail tweets video of elephants beside tracks

A grab of the video shows the elephants along the tracks between Gulma and Sevoke stations on Friday evening 

TT, Alipurduar: The Northeast Frontier Railway on Sunday tweeted video footage, showing a herd of elephants along tracks under the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary and claiming that they could be saved because the forest department had shared the animals' movement on time.

The 55468 Bamanhat-Siliguri Junction Passenger stopped 250m from the elephants which were on the tracks on Friday evening and waited for 10 minutes for the herd to move away.

The railways which had often been blamed in the past for elephant deaths on the tracks in the Dooars, said on Sunday that if the movement of herds was informed on time by the forest department, the animals could be saved.

C.V. Raman, the divisional railway manager of Alipurduar who tweeted the footage, said the railways would felicitate the driver and the assistant driver of the passenger train for applying the brake and saving the animals between Gulma and Sevoke stations in the Dooars on Friday evening.

"The train didn't knock down the herd as the information about the animals was shared with the drivers in advance. We are proud of the driver and the assistant driver and will felicitate them on Monday," he said.

"The incident proves that the loco pilots are always on alert and try to save elephants and other wild animals which often enter the tracks. And, it is not the first time. On many earlier occasions also, the loco pilots had managed to save elephants," added Raman.

The Dooars tracks that connect Siliguri Junction with Alipurduar Junction and pass through a number of stretches of reserve forests are vulnerable to elephants.

Over 70 elephants have been run over by trains on the stretch since 2003 when the tracks were converted from meter gauge into broad gauge.

At 5.35pm on Friday, loco pilot Amar Nath and his assistant Pawan Kumar were informed from the railway control room that a herd of seven elephants was roaming on the tracks between Gulma and Sevoke stations, located close to Siliguri, under the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary area.

"We could soon see the elephant herd. We pulled the brake and stopped the train at least 250m before the herd. We waited there for around 10 minutes till the entire herd moved away and then resumed the journey," said Nath. #

An environmentalist said the railways showed video footage to highlight that a collision with elephants could be avoided only if timely alert came from the foresters.

Told about the footage, a forest officer said on condition of anonymity: " We always try to provide information about elephants to the railways on time. We did the same on Friday also."