LAHORE, Aug 12: Three coaches of a passenger train derailed after a buffalo was run over by a train near Badami Bagh causing suspension of rail traffic for up to two hours early Sunday morning.

A Pakistan Railways official said that no passenger of the Lahore-bound 172-down Sialkot Express that runs between Rawalpindi and Lahore was injured in the derailment. He said rail traffic on the Badami Bagh-Shahdara Section had been restored.

The Sialkot Express had just crossed the Ravi Bridge and was on its way to Lahore at around 4am when suddenly a buffalo came on the track, the official said adding, “The animal was run over by the locomotive, its blood and fat made the track slippery resulting in derailment of three coaches.”

The official said a large portion of the down track on the section besides a signal point was damaged and a rescue train was immediately despatched from Lahore that cleared the track. Repair and rehabilitation of the track completed before the sunset while restoration of signal system was going on at the scene, he added.

Following the derailment, two passenger trains (216-down and 328-down that run between Narowal and Lahore and Peshawar Cantt and Lahore, respectively), one each fast passenger trains (206-down that runs between Sialkot and Lahore), night coach (106-down that runs between Rawalpindi and Lahore) and Mianwali non-stop (148-down that runs between Marri Indus and Lahore) were halted at the Badami Bagh, Shahdara, Kala Shah Kaku and Muridke railway stations from 40 minutes to two hours.

According to a passenger who was on board the Sialkot Express, the last three coaches of the train derailed one by one soon after the train left Shahdara Railway Station and started approaching Ravi Bridge. The driver, however, succeeded in dragging the train across the bridge and later applied brakes at a safer place near the Badami Bagh Railway Station.

The passenger said he called Railway Inquiry 117 at 4:02am from his cell phone for immediate help and information when the derailed train was crossing the Ravi Bridge but no body picked up the phone.

Meanwhile, widespread rains in Sindh delayed the arrival of several trains at Lahore by four to 17 hours on Sunday.

The worst affected was Shalimar Express that arrived here over 17 hours behind its schedule, followed by Sindh Express, Allama Iqbal Express, Night Coach and Awam Express (nine hours each), Karakorum Express and Jaffar Express (six hours each), Jinnah Express (five hours) and Quetta Express (four hours).