More than a thousand furious rail passengers stormed a station office after they noticed the train they were on had gone 980km in the WRONG direction。
As the packed service pulled into the Indian city of Warangal people on board went berserk as they realised they were five hours away from where they should have been and no staff on board had noticed。
The train departed the southern town of Tirupati heading for the eastern city of Bhubaneswar。
It was when it arrived at an interchange at Vijayawada it went wrong, as it was due to swing north to its eventual destination of Varanasi, one of India's holiest cities。
印度一列车方向搞错行驶980公里
India's signalling system is run on codes but instead of entering the three-letters for its next intended stop Bhubaneswar (BBS) staff put in the code for Bilaspur (BSP) sending the train in completely the wrong direction。
Experts were amazed the service did not crash as it went for 600 miles on the completely wrong track。
"Though the journey was agonising, we thank our stars that the train did not run into another train," an angry passenger said。
Embarrassed staff, some of whom were apparently asleep on that leg of the journey, also blamed an unfamiliar route because they were running a special service to Varanasi and many had never been there before。