Speed 3! Out-of-control Indian train carrying 1,000 passengers travels for miles because workers forgot to fit it with brakes
Workers had fitted the train with a new engine – but neglected to include skid brakes, causing it to careen through two stations without stopping
In a scene that could have come from a Hollywood movie, a train carrying 1,000 passengers raced out of control for seven miles before it could be brought to an emergency stop.
It all started when rail staff set out to attach a new engine to the train, which was due to arrive from the western state of Gujarat to the eastern state of Odisha on Saturday evening.
Workers had neglected to attack the skid brakes to the locomotive, causing the train to keep rolling inexorably forward, even as engineers scrambled to clear the tracks of other trains and passengers on board screamed and prayed.
Onlookers whipped out their phones to record as the train, with nearly 1,000 on board, whizzed through two stations.
Then, some luck: the train came to a hill.
The tug of gravity slowed the vehicle enough that operators could apply the emergency handbrake.