LAHORE, July 25: Derailment of the locomotive of the Lahore-bound Karachi Express at Kot Radha Kishan railway station on Tuesday kept rail traffic suspended on the Sahiwal-Raiwind section for over two hours, resulting in one to five hours late arrival of trains at Lahore railway station.

Officials said the 15-up train was passing through Kot Radha Kishan station when the front trolley of its locomotive derailed because of points’ fault at around 11:30am.

“Eighteen coaches of the train remained on the track and no one was hurt,” Lahore Divisional Superintendent M. Khalid told this reporter.

The train was at a speed between 15 and 20 kilometres per hour on the loop line and its driver applied breaks soon after the derailment. Inspection of the track revealed that there was around two inches’ gap between the rails connecting the loop lines with the main track.

It was because of the negligence of the points’ staff and Singals Inspector Ashfaq Bhatti had been suspended from service for giving green signal to the train in spite of the faulty points.

“There should be no gap between the lines,” Mr Khalid said and added a detailed inquiry into the derailment would also be held.

A locomotive was despatched from Lahore to pull the train back and then to Lahore at around 5pm.

The major trains that reached Lahore late included Tezgam (7-up and 8-down) and Jaffar Express (39-up) and Khyber Mail (2-down).