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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that honors the dead by sharing their stories

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Speaker 1: with the living. I'm Gabe Louzier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're returning to the fateful day when the nation of

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Speaker 1: Pakistan mourned the worst rail disaster that it's ever known.

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Speaker 1: The day was January fourth. An overcrowded passenger train slammed

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Speaker 1: into a parked freight train at a railway station in

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Speaker 1: the Sinned province of Pakistan. The collision occurred at about

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Speaker 1: twelve thirty am at the Songhi Village station and the

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Speaker 1: Succor district. The crash killed between two hundred and three

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Speaker 1: hundred people and injured as many as seven hundred others.

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Speaker 1: The noise from the impact was so loud that villagers

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Speaker 1: reported hearing it as far as five miles away. The

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Speaker 1: passenger train was named the bahaw Hoodin Zakrea Express, after

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Speaker 1: a medieval Muslim scholar of the same name. With sixteen cars,

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Speaker 1: the train had a capacity of fourteen hundred passengers, but

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Speaker 1: it was common practice to overload cars in Pakistan back then,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, the Zachrea was carrying closer to

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Speaker 1: two thousand passengers. On the morning of the crash, the

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Speaker 1: train had set out from the Punjab province city of

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Speaker 1: Maltan on a five hundred mile overnight trip to the

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Speaker 1: southern port city of Karachi. Songhi Village was about halfway

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Speaker 1: through the journey, and the Zakrea arrived there shortly after

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Speaker 1: midnight on January four. As the train approached the station,

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Speaker 1: one of the workers suddenly switched the train to a

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Speaker 1: new side track. Unbeknownst to the engineer or apparently to

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Speaker 1: the railway workers, a sixties seven car freight train had

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Speaker 1: already been parked there overnight on that same side track.

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Speaker 1: By the time anyone realized the danger, it was too late.

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Speaker 1: The Zachrea plowed directly into the back of the freight

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Speaker 1: train at a speed of thirty five miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: The locomotive was immediately thrown off the rails, and it

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Speaker 1: pulled the first three passenger cars along with it. Nearly

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Speaker 1: everyone in those front three cars was killed or seriously injured,

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Speaker 1: but the damage extended through virtually the entire train. In fact,

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Speaker 1: witnesses reported that the eighth car had been partially buried

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Speaker 1: by the force of the collision, and army troops had

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Speaker 1: to use blowtorches to cut into the one portion of

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Speaker 1: the mangled car that was still above ground. Survivors were

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Speaker 1: rushed to one of Succor's seven hospitals, but of beds

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Speaker 1: filled up fast, and some victims had to be airlifted

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Speaker 1: all the way to Karachi for emergency treatment. The official

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Speaker 1: death toll reported that day was two hundred and ten people,

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Speaker 1: though some later reports put the estimate at well over

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Speaker 1: three hundred lives lost. The Zachrea's engineer had survived the

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Speaker 1: crash by leaping from the moving train moments before impact.

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Speaker 1: A state investigation concluded that the driver had no chance

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Speaker 1: to break and that the railway staff was directly responsible

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Speaker 1: for the collision. Three employees at Songi station were eventually

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Speaker 1: charged with criminal negligence and manslaughter. This included the careless

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Speaker 1: signalman who had switched the passenger train onto an occupied track,

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Speaker 1: and the assistant station manager who had allowed the freight

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Speaker 1: train to remain in the station overnight. Both trains involved

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Speaker 1: in the crash were operated by Pakistan Railways, a national

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Speaker 1: state run company that owns about five thousand miles of

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Speaker 1: track across Pakistan. The company has a long history of

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Speaker 1: fatal railway accidents, stretching back to its founding in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, but the Secore rail disaster of nine nine

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Speaker 1: is considered their worst one to date. Since nineteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: there have been dozens of train related accidents in Pakistan,

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Speaker 1: and the tragedies didn't stop with the one at Songhi station.

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Speaker 1: In fact, less than a year and a half later,

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Speaker 1: a crash in the goat Key district killed over a

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Speaker 1: hundred people, and in June of one another crash and

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Speaker 1: goat Key killed at least sixty five passengers. Trains aren't

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Speaker 1: the primary mode of transportation in Pakistan like they used

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Speaker 1: to be, but the country's rail system still carries more

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Speaker 1: than sixty million passengers every year. Train crashes remain all

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Speaker 1: too common in the country because successive governments haven't put

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Speaker 1: enough resources into improving the aging colonial era railways, and

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Speaker 1: several decades of corporate graft and corruption haven't helped much either. Still,

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Speaker 1: there is hope for brighter, safer days ahead. A recent

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Speaker 1: investment from the Chinese government has already led to thousands

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Speaker 1: of miles of updated tracks, as well as hundreds of

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Speaker 1: refurbished engines, passenger cars, and train stations throughout the country.

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Speaker 1: There's still a long way to go, but hopefully in

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Speaker 1: the not too distant future, Pakistani's will be able to

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Speaker 1: ride the rails more safely and frequent train collisions will

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Speaker 1: be a thing of the paddies. I'm Gabe Louzier and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about

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Speaker 1: history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: t d i HZ show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, you can send them my way at

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Speaker 1: this Day at i heart media dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in History class. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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