LAHORE, May 10: Timely action by a cabin man averted collision between two express trains at the Lahore Railway Station on Thursday. A number of passengers of Subak Raftar told this reporter by phone that their train was abruptly halted before reaching the Lahore railway station, driven backwards and stationed along the platform No 5.

Sources said cabin man Mirza Munir Baig was on duty near the platform No 7 and 8 towards Badami Bagh. Around 1pm, he noticed that the Lahore-bound Subak Raftar Express (102-Down) had not stopped in spite of a red signal. Mirza first waved a red flag, but the train coming from Rawalpindi continued moving towards the platform No 8.

Knowing that the Rawalpindi-bound Jaffar Express (39-Up) was scheduled to arrive from Quetta at the same platform, Mirza got down the stairs and started running along the track while waving red flags in his both hands. It was then that the driver of the Subak Raftar locomotive applied emergency brakes and the train halted with a jerk around 300 yards away from the platform No 8.

Soon after the halt, the Subak Raftar was driven backwards and allowed to proceed towards the platform No 5 where it was stationed.

Senior officers of the Lahore division of Pakistan Railways reached the spot within minutes, sources claimed.

Railways’ Lahore Divisional Superintendent M Khalid was not available for comment while his staff denied any such incident occurred at the railway station. —Staff Reporter