Act of bravery: Shepherd runs for a kilometre to save train from crashing, honoured

Vinit Gupta, Ratlam's Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), invited Rakesh Baria to his office and thanked him for preventing an accident with his action.

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On February 21st in Dahod district of Gujarat, located on the Delhi-Mumbai route, a shepherd, age 30, avoided an accident when he ran about a kilometer before flagging down a train, officials said. Dahod is part of the Ratlam division of the Western Railway. Ratlam's Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Vinit Gupta invited him to his office after learning about Baria's act and praised his presence of mind and promptness, which prevented an accident.

Rakesh Baria was honoured by the Ratlam division railway officials with a cash reward of Rs 5,000 and a citation on Wednesday, two days after the incident, they said. After being honoured, Baria said that when he was grazing his goats, he saw a railway track broken at one place, after which he ran for a kilometre to raise an alarm, but did not see any railway employee there.

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"Then I called my father and informed him about the broken railway track. He tried to contact some railway personnel over the phone, but failed to do so," he said.

Afterwards, as per the advice of his father, he went to his home located nearby and returned to the track with a piece of red cloth, he said. Baria said that later, he sat about two kilometres from the place of the broken track and started waving the red cloth on seeing a goods train. On seeing him, the loco pilot stopped the train by applying emergency brakes. After that, the work of repairing the rail track was launched, he said.

The railway officials said that the broken track has been repaired. A total of around 125 trains - passenger as well as goods trains - pass on this busy route on a daily basis, they said.

With inputs from PTI