Fog hits rail, road, air traffic
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Dec 24 — Delhi is likely to celebrate a ‘White’ Christmas tomorrow but the weather office says the New Year may witness clear skies, even as thick fog continued to envelop the Capital for the sixth consecutive day today.

The fog cover over the Capital will continue till such time the minimum day temperature does not rise and the humidity level does not reduce.

According to officials in the weather office, it is difficult to hazard a guess when the fog veil will be lifted "as the fog sets in due to certain weather conditions and till such time those conditions exist, the Capital will have thick fog, especially during the night and early morning hours".

Rail, road and air traffic has been thrown out of gear due to the thick fog.

Rail traffic in the entire North has been hit by the unprecedented weather condition. Most trains passing through Delhi have been delayed.

Usually the fog starts in January. but this year, it descended in the first week of December. "Initially, the visibility was reduced to about 100 metres, but for the past 10 days, it has been reduced to nearly nil. This is worsened by the fact that the fog lifts for only two to three hours everyday," a Northern Railway press note said today.

"In fact on December 23 the fog continued round the clock on the major Delhi-Ambala section," the note added.

Railway officials said the fog had greatly reduced the speed of all trains.

"On over-saturated sections, the speed of the trains is reduced to 30 km per hour and about 60 km per hour on other sections. This has been done to minimise the risk of collision".

Hundreds of railway staff are engaged in continuous duty to man important signals to warn drivers so that the signals are not missed.

The departure of trains has also been delayed. "The departures are not just dependent upon arrival. But also maintenance margin to ensure safe runs. Considerations of catering and bed roll supply are also involved. There is also the issue of guards and drivers whose duty hours need critical monitoring to avoid fatigue," the press note said.

The airlines schedule also remained severely affected. Several passengers have been stranded at Mumbai and Delhi airports as no flight could take off in the morning due to near-zero visibility, airport officials said.

The first Indian Airlines flight for Goa left at 1140 hours this morning. Several flights had to be either cancelled, diverted or rescheduled.

Traffic on roads in and around Delhi was reduced to a crawl as visibility was cut to less than 50 metres. Non-functioning of traffic lights at many intersections added to the woes of commuters.

Indian Airlines officials said IA had suffered losses running into several crores in the past seven days due to bad weather conditions.

"Since December 18, when fog started playing a havoc with flight schedules, the Indian Airlines has cancelled 65 flights, including 44 from Delhi out of a total of 600 scheduled flights," the officials said.

With the meteorological office predicting similar weather conditions till Monday, the airlines losses might mount further.

The cumulative impact of the delays and cancellation of flights in Delhi has severely affected the schedules in other cities, especially the four metros.

Employees of the Indian Airlines are having a tough time facing inconvenient passengers and in making arrangements to provide them with food and hotel accommodation.

CHANDIGARH: Even as almost all express and mail trains, including the Delhi-Chandigarh Shatabdi, were delayed for several hours on the third consecutive day to dense fog in Punjab and Haryana, several trains were cancelled on Thursday.

Railway sources said that the Chandigarh-Delhi Shatabdi arrived here about three-and-a-half hours behind schedule. The train arrived at 2.02 p.m. as against its scheduled time of 10.40 a.m. The train left the city around 2.55 p.m.

The fog coupled "with damaged" track on the Delhi-Panipat section were the main reasons for the delay of the train. As against a normal speed of about 105 to 110 km per hour, the speed of the train in the dense fog was not beyond 60 km per hour.

The delayed trains, the sources said, created the problem of bunching of trains outside stations. When a train arrives late it cannot be berthed at a platform as by that time another train is scheduled to arrive or depart, leading to further delay, the sources added.

The New Delhi-Kalka Himalayan Queen arrived at Kalka nearly seven hours late due to thick fog en route. However, the trains on the narrow gauge on the Kalka-Shimla section were running on schedule on account of bright sunshine.

Among the trains that were cancelled were the Bathinda-New Delhi Intercity and two express trains to Kalka and New Delhi from Sri Ganganagar.