AC switched off, felt suffocated: Tejas Express passenger after train gets stuck in flooded Vadodara

Prithwiraj Mukherjee from Ahmedabad had to travel standing outside the toilet of a different train to reach his destination. (Right) The flooded railway tracks following heavy rainfall. (Image credit: @peeleraja/X)

Extremely heavy rainfall in Gujarat has led to flooding and brought cities such as Vadodara, Rajkot and Ahmedabad to a standstill. Amid this, a Tejas Express train plying from Mumbai to Ahmedabad got stuck in Vadodara with at least one passenger complaining that they were left to wait inside the train with the air conditioning switched off with no official clarification. The incident happened early on Tuesday.

Prithwiraj Mukherjee, a professor at Ahmedabad University, took to social media to share the ordeal.

"I am on the Tejas Express 82901. Got on at Mumbai Central at 1545 and should have reached Ahmedabad Junction at 2215. Due to rain, the train has been canceled at Vadodara. No official intimation. Just AC switched off," he wrote. "While rain has affected service, the Vande Bharat, which ran parallel to us, has reached Ahmedabad. We are left to our devices. Vadodara is flooded. There is nowhere to go. There are senior citizens and kids on this train."

Bajva station. A miracle of engineering. Tracks 2ft under water. pic.twitter.com/ItNKJYuv54
peeleraja (@peeleraja) August 27, 2024

Mukherjee added that with the AC switched off, he along with other passengers felt suffocated. "No official has come to address us. They have just switched off the AC and left, hoping we crawl out in suffocation. Some people have managed to open the auto-closing door and block it open so we can breathe," he wrote.

The professor said that there were more than 100 passengers on the Tejas Express -- including new mothers, senior citizens, and disabled citizens -- who had the face the brunt of the situation until they found a few railway officials who turned the AC back on.

Mukherjee also accused the Railways giving preferential treatment to Vande Bharat since it was allowed to ply on flooded tracks to reach Ahmedabad, but as Railway Seva -- the official X account for support to Railway passengers -- pointed out, Vande Bharat can run in deep waters measuring more than 200 mm without having the water reach it's electrical equipment. That's a feature that Tejas Express does not have.

Miracles of Indian Railway engineering that Hon'ble Railway Minister Mr Vaishnaw of IIT and Wharton won't show in his reels pic.twitter.com/qyns85kaKWpeeleraja (@peeleraja) August 27, 2024

"Water was flowing above the track ,Vande Bharat higher clearance and advanced prevention of water ingress into the the electrical equipment allows this train to run in deep water even more than 200 MM water above the track," Railway Seva tweeted in response to Mukherjee's post. "Other Locomotives of trains (other than Vande Bharat ) don't have such clearance and can't be operated after water level above track is more than 150 mm."

It did not, however, clarify why the AC was switched off with the passengers still inside the train.

Meanwhile, Mukherjee and other passengers were asked to board a different train to Ahmedabad amid a wild rush. He ended up reaching his destination after standing outside the toilet of the train for hours.

This is my backrest pic.twitter.com/KvF0pAg5CD peeleraja (@peeleraja) August 27, 2024

"Standing outside the loo of a 3-tier AC train. This is what a "luxury" ticket in Tejas Express gets you. It is a two-hour journey but will probably take 5 hours. So five hours of standing with many others from other trains," he wrote.

In an update, Mukherjee shared that the terrible ordeal that started around 2 am finally concluded after he reached home around 2pm.