Here’s what you need to know about Coromandel Express train

The Coromandel Express runs at a speed of 130 km/hr and covers a distance of 1659 kms between Shalimar railway station, West Bengal, and Chentntral railway station, Tamil Nadu.

Hyderabad: In one of the major train accidents in the history of India, at least 275 were killed and over 1,000 injured in a train accident in Odisha’s Balasore district when the Coromandel Express crashed the goods train on June 2.

Initially, on June 3, the Odisha government stated the death toll as 288 but on Sunday the death toll number was revised to 275.  The Chief Secretary of Odisha, PK Jena said that some bodies were counted twice, but after thorough verification, the toll was fixed at 275.

---

According to preliminary reports from the railways, the accident occurred due to human error as the train took the wrong track and crashed the goods train, resulting in a derailment. At the same time, the Yashwantnagar Express coming from the other side also collided with the Coromandel Express.

Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw ordered a CBI probe into the matter. Also, the Commissioner of Railway Safety, South Eastern Railway, is carrying out a probe into the matter.

The Minister on Sunday said the incident occurred due to the tampering of the electronic interlocking and people responsible for the occurrence of the event have been identified.

Here’s the background of the Coromandel Express

Introduced by Indian Railways on March 6 in 1977, the Coromandel Express runs at a speed of 130 km/hr and covers a distance of 1659 kms between Shalimar railway station, West Bengal, and Chennai Central railway station, Tamil Nadu in 25 hrs and 30 minutes.

In addition to West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the train also runs along Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states.

The superfast train makes a small number of stops and traverses faster than the Howrah–Chennai train, so many passengers from Tamil Nadu prefer the Coromandel Express train.

When it was introduced in 1977, the train used to run only once a week, but with the demand from the public, the train frequency was increased from 2 days a week to 5 days a week. And since 1996, the Indian Railways made its service accessible to people 7 days a week.

As said, the train travels across the southern part of the Eastern Coast of India, covering four states, also called Coromandel Cost, hence the name Coromandel Express.