Some passengers were stranded for a few minutes on Saturday as a result of activities of hoodlums on the rail track of the Lagos-Ibadan rail line.
The hoodlums were said to have removed some of the components of the rail line, forcing the train to stop.
A train, which was said to have departed the Obafemi Awolowo Train Station, Ibadan, Oyo State, at 8:30am on Saturday was stopped somewhere before Funmilayo Ransom Kuti at the Papalanto area due to the vandals’ activities, a report by PUNCH said.
One of the passengers aboard the train, who is a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Feyi Leo, said fear gripped her and other passengers when the train was forced to stop.
According to her, another train coming from Lagos to Ibadan was also forced to stop in the opposite direction and the two trains continued the journey after the damaged section was fixed.
She said, “The trip was smooth and we had gone past the station at Abeokuta and moving towards Papalanto when the train stopped and it reversed some few meters.
“We were agitated and started asking questions. An announcement was made by the NRC official onboard that their technicians were fixing a fault on the track and that it would not take long.
“True to their word, we left after 20 minutes of stoppage. But I was afraid while the whole thing lasted because of the materials on my laptop. There is no backup and it would have been a huge loss if anything had happened to my laptop.”
Another passenger named Promise said the temporary stoppage caused panic on board the train, adding that there were armed security personnel on board and with the technicians who fixed the damaged track.
The 157 kilometres Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge railway started commercial operations in September 2020.
There had been a similar incident in January when a train was forced to stop for about 35 minutes before the journey later continued.
RelatedPosts
