The reptile surfaced when a passenger tried to shift his baggage

Passengers in an air-conditioned coach of the Coimbatore-Chennai Central Cheran Superfast Express were in for a horrific experience minutes before the train reached its destination early on Thursday.

A long snake surfaced from beneath a berth in B-3 three-tier AC compartment of train no. 12674 when one of the passengers tried to move his baggage.

The terrified passengers ran helter skelter on seeing the reptile.

“We all hurriedly took our belongings and moved to the end of the coach.

As the attendants tried to locate the snake, the train rolled into the platform. It appeared to be a venomous snake,” B. Bhuvana of Coimbatore said.

Since it is an AC coach, it looks like the snake had been there in the compartment when the train left Coimbatore on Wednesday night, she said.

The snake was found under a lower berth and it swiftly moved to the side lower berth nearby as passengers raised an alarm.

“I informed a policeman after getting down from the train at Chennai Central. He went in to check... we don’t know what happened after that,” Dr. Bhuvana said.

The Divisional Railway Manager, Chennai division, Naveen Gulati, told The Hindu that the snake was removed from the train. How the reptile managed to enter the coach is under investigation, he said.

The rakes of Cheran Express are maintained both at Chennai and Coimbatore.