On Sunday morning, Mumbai's Churchgate station witnessed a horrific spectacle that few could have imagined on the city's heavily used suburban railway network: a south-bound local train overshot the dead-end of the terminus and crashed into the platform.

Fortunately, the train was empty and the platform was not too busy. Though four or five people were injured in the accident, including the motorman and his guard, there were no casualties. Had this been an weekday, the accident could have caused a major tragedy at the station that handles more than five lakh passengers most weekdays.



Soon after the accident, images of the scene began flooding Twitter as services on the Western line took a hit.


The incident occurred around 11.40 am when the motorman at the helm of the Bhayander-Churchgate train allegedly lost control of the rake and drove into the buffer of the terminus at a greater speed than normal. Railway authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, although a brake failure is one of the suspected reasons.


A similar freak accident had taken place at CST – Mumbai's Central Railway terminus, in 2011, when a crowded train rammed into the iron buffering panels of the dead-end. The shock of the jolt had injured five women commuters, but today's Churchgate accident is possibly the first time that a local train has actually been jolted on to the elevated platform.