When an Indian divisional forest official found an elephant in labor on a set of train tracks at 3 a.m., he knew he had to act fast. He ran his pachyderm problem up the chain of command.

Divisional forest officer, Ramgarh, Nitish Kumar, said: “A forest guard informed me that a pregnant elephant is lying on the tracks in labour pain. He warned that it might get run over, and requested to stop all train movement along the route.”

Luckily for the officials, the rail line through the state of Jharkhand didn’t carry any passengers. If there wasn’t any perishable freight rolling through, they should be able to put a stop to all train traffic.

Kumar explained, “I immediately contacted railway control room in Barkakana and requested them to stop all trains.” There was only one train on the tracks. Its freight? Multiple cars full of coal. So the engineer threw on the red light, and gave the soon-to-be mama the green light.

The elephant was in labor for two more hours. And with the average elephant calf weighing 200+ pounds at birth, who can blame her? Luckily she didn’t… run out of steam. As night morphed into dawn, the mama elephant finally gave birth and the new family hurried out of the way. You might say the calf was born on the right track.

The Times of India reports the state of Jharkhand deals with serious human-elephant conflict. It adds that in the past five years, 30 elephants have died of “electrocution and various other reasons.” Meanwhile, “Jharkhand has reported a staggering loss of 474 human lives in past five years due to such conflicts.” Staggering indeed! Let’s hope this event—widely shared on social media—will trumpet a peace agreement.