NEW DELHI: When a Thiruvananthapuram–Delhi Rajdhani Express caught fire on the morning of May 17, residents of Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh may well have reacted with a sense of grim familiarity: “Again.”
They had reason to.
More than 15 years ago, on April 18, 2011, Ratlam had witnessed another major fire involving a Rajdhani Express. That incident occurred on the Mumbai–Delhi Rajdhani around 2 am, when a blaze erupted in the pantry car before spreading to three adjoining coaches.
All 1,100 passengers were safely evacuated. The train was then travelling between Alot and Thuriya stations in the Ratlam railway division. Alot station — now known as Vikramgarh Alot — serves the small Madhya Pradesh town of Alot, one of the many lesser-known stops along the Delhi–Mumbai rail corridor.
Fast forward to May 17, 2026. At around 5 am, yet another Rajdhani caught fire in nearly the same region — this time between Vikramgarh Alot and Luni Richha stations, again within the Ratlam railway division.
Fortunately, as in 2011, there were no fatalities. All 68 passengers on board managed to escape safely.
Unlike the earlier incident, however, the latest fire was contained to a single coach, which railway officials quickly detached from the rest of the train, limiting the damage.
The Rajdhani Express network, once regarded as the pinnacle of Indian Railways travel, has witnessed similar fire incidents elsewhere over the years.
On May 11, 2019, a fire broke out on a Bhubaneswar-bound Rajdhani near Balasore. Earlier, on April 22, 2015, six empty coaches belonging to two Rajdhani trains — one from Bhubaneswar and another from Sealdah — caught fire in a railway yard in Delhi.
But Ratlam now occupies a rare and unfortunate place in Rajdhani history: the railway division where two separate Rajdhani fires occurred over a span of 15 years.
There is, however, one reassuring similarity between the two incidents.
The death toll remained zero. Both times.
