KHARAGPUR: The Haldia-Howrah local train in Kharagpur-Haldia division of South Eastern Railway collided with a trolley van near Chandipur in Mahishadal while going from Mahishadal railway station towards Barda at 9.30 am on Tuesday. The machine van driver and his companion died in this. However, due to the machine van getting stuck under the train, the train could not start even after a long delay. There were people going to the office in the train who got late due to getting stuck in the jam. Even after a long time had passed, no one came to retrieve the dead body. After two hours, the work of moving the machine van by cutting it with a gas cutter was started.
The Tamluk-Haldia railway line was covered in dense fog since this morning. At around 9:30 in the morning, the train was moving ahead of Mahishadal towards Barda, when a machine van was passing through the railway line on the road from Babarhat to Chandipur. The driver of the machine van could not see the train due to dense fog. Due to this, the train collided with the speeding machine van. The driver and his companion of the machine van fell down in a pool of blood. Both of them died.
The machine van had rammed into the engine of the train. Getting stuck in the engine for some time, she kept getting dragged forward. After the incident, when the Asansol Express train going to Haldia came on the next line, the passengers put pressure on the train and started towards Haldia. According to railway sources, the local train will not be able to run until the engine van is removed.