A vacant local train rammed into the buffers of a platform at Sealdah station, resulting in one of the compartments partially mounting the platform and another two jumping tracks early on Sunday.

The train was entering platform number 10 in the Sealdah South section from the carshed around 4am when the driver apparently dozed off and failed to apply the brakes in time, railway officials said.

Samaresh Mukherjee, who was bringing the train to the platform, has been suspended.

The accident was reminiscent of the one at Mumbai's Churchgate station in June. Four persons were injured at Churchgate after a local train hit the buffers and part of the driver's cabin mounted the platform.

No one was injured at Sealdah as the train was vacant and the platform was empty, too, at that early hour. "Going by the extent of the train's damage, had there been passengers in the affected coaches they would have been injured," an Eastern Railway official said.

Officials said the train was not entering the platform at a high speed, suggesting the accident resulted from a human error.

"The train was moving at 12-15 km per hour, the usual speed of a local train when it approaches a platform," an official said.

They said the train was being brought to the platform by a shunter, who is several grades below the motorman and not allowed to drive passenger trains. Amongst some other duties, shunters often bring empty trains to the platforms from the carshed where they are parked either for maintenance or to ferry passengers.

"Based on preliminary investigations we feel that the shunter may have dozed off as the train approached the buffer. He did not stop the train and it went on to hit the buffer," said a senior official of Eastern Railway.

At around 4am, the local train that was parked at the carshed, was being brought to platform number 10 to start its first journey to Laxmikantpur in the south section.

Instead of stopping at the end of the tracks, the train rammed into the buffer which is a device to prevent trains from going past the end of a physical section of a track.

Due to the impact of the crash a vendor bogey, third from the front, grazed the side of the platform and mounted it. Two bogeys behind the vendor bogey crashed with each other. The roofs of both the bogeys caved in and the seats came unstuck.

Twenty-five Group D employees were engaged to push the bogey that mounted the platform back on the tracks. Since the couplings of the derailed coaches had broken, an engine towed them away with the help of thick iron wires.

According to officials many people would have got injured, if there were passengers on the train.

"The impact of the accident was such that the roof of the coaches have caved in and seats have come unstuck. If there were passengers in the train, there would have been several injuries," said an official of eastern Railway.

Railway officials have ordered a probe into the accident.