Alert loco pilots halt goods train to save two lions on track in Gujarat

Bhavnagar: Two alert loco pilots of a goods train saved the lives of two lions that had wandered onto a railway track in Gujarat’s Amreli district in the early hours of Monday, an official said.

In the last few years, lions have either died or seriously hurt on the railway line connecting Pipavav Port with north Gujarat.

The incident occurred around 5.30 am on the Pipavav-Rajula section where loco pilot Vivek Verma and assistant loco pilot Rahul Solanki were piloting a goods train, the Western Railway’s Bhavnagar division stated in a release.

The duo were alerted about the presence of two lions on the tracks by two ‘trackers’ of the forest department deployed there to ensure the safety of lions wandering near tracks, it said.

The pilots applied emergency brakes to stop the train after they saw a red light flashed at them by the forest trackers standing at some distance. After the train stopped, trackers Bharatbhai and Bholabhai approached the pilots and informed them about two lions sitting on the tracks, the release said.

The train later left for its destination after getting a green signal from the trackers once the lions moved away from the track, it said.

Senior railway officials lauded the loco pilots for saving the lives of the lions.

As per the release, alert loco pilots of the Bhavnagar railway division have saved the lives of 44 lions since April 2024.

In a similar incident in June, lives of 10 lions were saved after the loco pilot of a goods train applied emergency brakes on spotting the big cats on the tracks near Pipavav Port.

The state forest department has erected fences along the track at regular intervals to save lions from getting hit by trains.

In the recent past, the Gujarat High Court, while hearing a suo motu PIL over the death of Asiatic lions due to unnatural causes, had asked the state government and Railways to take concrete steps to save the big cats from getting hit by trains.