UP: Stone chunks, carcass of cattle hit Vande Bharat Express; seven windowpanes damaged

AGRA: Seven windowpane of the Vande Bharat Express were damaged when the train was hit by stones and carcass of cattle while returning to Delhi from Varanasi on Saturday night.
The incident took place at 7:45pm at Achalda railway station of Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh, when the Dibrugarh-bound Rajdhani, crossing on the adjoining line, run over a cattle.
North Central railway chief public relation officer Gaurav Krishan Bansal said “A shower of ballast and cattle bones came flying towards the train hitting seven glass panels of Vande Bharat Express of coach numbers C4, C6, C7, C8, C13 and two glass panes of C12.”

Surprised by the second such incident in just four days, CPRO Bansal said, “It’s very rare to see cattle carcass hitting other train on adjoining line.” At the time of incident, Dibrugarh Rajdhani was cruising at 90kmph, while Vande Bharat at 116 kmph.Both the train crossed each other at Achalda. After the incident, Vande Bharat continued journey with the broken windowpane, while Rajdhani made sudden halt for 11 minutes before leaving for Kanpur.
Earlier on Wednesday (February 20), a stone was hurled at Vande Bharat Express, damaging windowpane of C2 coach while the train was heading Varanasi. Interestingly on its return journey to Delhi, the train suffered cattle runover between Bharthana and Ekdil stations of Etawah district. Earlier this month, miscreants had pelted stones on the train near Sadar in Delhi while it was on its way to New Delhi station to begin a trial run to Prayagraj. One window of a coach was damaged in that incident. On December 20, 2018, during the last leg of the final trial run on the stretch between Delhi and Agra stations, miscreants pelted stones on the train in Mathura, breaking a windowpane.
Meanwhile, on Sunday morning Vande Bharat left for Varanasi at its scheduled time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 15 flagged off the semi-high speed train from New Delhi Railway Station. Its commercial operations began on February 17.