Mumbai-bound Vande Bharat Express rams into cow in Gujarat’s Anand district

In a freak accident on Friday, the newly introduced Vande Bharat Express on the Gandhinagar-Mumbai route hit a cow near Anand station in Gujarat on Friday. There was only a dent in the train’s front bumper and it had to be halted for 10 minutes, officials said.

The incident comes merely a day after the semi-high-speed train hit four buffaloes, and its ‘nose’ cone had come off. It proceeded after an eight-minute halt as damage to the nose does not hamper the operation of the  train.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said such collisions with cattle are unavoidable and “this has been kept in mind while designing the train”. “Its nose on the front is totally replaceable,” the minister said.

An FIR has been registered against the cattle owners for letting the animals stary on to the tracks.

The latest collision place at 3.44 pm near the town of Anand, about 100 kilometres from Gandhinagar and over 400 km from Mumbai. The train accelerates to a speed of 160 km per hour in just over two minutes, and has better riding comfort than other trains.

“The train’s front portion has suffered a small dent,” Sumit Thakur, chief public relations officer of Western Railway, said, adding that all the passengers were safe.

Thursday’s collision with buffaloes occurred when the train was on its way from Mumbai to Gandhinagar, around 11 am, between Batwa and Maninagar, ahead of Ahmedabad.