bhubaneswar believe it or not 22 coaches of the 18406 ahmedabadpuri express via sambalpur with around 1000 passengers rolled on for 13km without any engine in orissas titlagarh section on saturday night the headless train crossed a bridge over the tel river and passed kesinga station before slowing down at a level crossing later railway staff stopped the runaway coaches by placing stones on the tracks videos on social media showed people on a platform at kesinga frantically screaming and gesturing at the passengers to pull the chain miraculously no one was hurt passengers initially did not know that something was amiss but panicked when they realised that the train had left its engine behind railways on sunday suspended seven employees following the incident the incident took place when the puribound train arrived in titlagarh 385km from bhubaneswar at 935pm on saturday here it was to reverse its direction to head to puri via sambalpur in a process called loco or rake reversal as part of that the engine is detached and reattached to the other end of the train while the coaches are held in place with the help of skid brakes it is suspected the skid brakes were not applied it is suspected that the skid brakes were not applied or did not work properly in this case resulting in the coaches going offroute and rolling towards kesinga in kalahandi district which is located on a downward slope from titlagarh at 1010pmwhen the engine is detached from one end of the train to be reattached to the other the coaches should be secured with the help of skid brakes at the wheels in this case it appears that these had not been placed properly the facts will be known after a detailed enquiry said an ecor spokespersonthe headless coaches crossed a bridge over the tel river and passed kesinga station before slowing down at a level crossing later railway staff managed to stop them by placing stones on the tracks said official sources after a thorough check the train this time with the engine attached left kesinga for titlagarh at 1235am it arrived in puri at 130pm around five hours latevideos circulating on social media show people on a platform at kesinga station frantically screaming and gesturing at the passengers to pull the chain no one was hurt in the incident but it caused panic among the passengers they were initially not aware of anything amiss but grew alarmed when they realised that the train had left its engine behindbefore we could understand anything it had started rolling towards kesinga we tried pulling the chains but nothing happened since there was no engine said mukesh sharma a passenger i think it was going at 40kmph when it crossed the river bridge we were trembling with fear he addedchief minister naveen patnaik has expressed concern over the incident passenger safety is above everything and cannot be compromised railway minister piyush goyal should take remedial action