Rail traffic goes from bad to worse in region

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, October 10

The Northern Railway authorities, it seems, have failed to come to terms with the rail traffic in the region, which has gone from bad to worse during the past couple of days. Even as the two pairs of intercity trains from Amritsar and Jalandhar to New Delhi remained cancelled today, the misery of travellers was compounded due to late running of two pairs of morning and evening shatabdi trains on the Amritsar-Ludhiana-New Delhi section today.

Besides, the Railways has rescheduled some half a dozen trains due to operational reasons while more than two dozen long-route trains were running late by two or 21 hours, making rail travel nothing less than an ordeal.

While two pairs of intercity express trains, 12459/60 New Delhi-Amritsar-New Delhi and 14681/82 New Delhi-Jalandhar-New Delhi, remained cancelled, the Railways had rescheduled 12355 Rajendra Nagar-Jammu Archna Express (3.40 hrs), 12413 Ajmer-Jammu Pooja Express (6 hrs), 12477 Jamnagar-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra (7.15 hrs), 14649 Jaynagar-Amritsar Saryu-Yamuna Express (7 hrs) and 15210 Amritsar-Saharsa Jansewa Express (9.45 hrs).

Frequent travellers to the national capital, especially those going for time-bound meetings or those having to take flights from New Delhi, were the worst hit. Railway officials said evening shatabdi express (12013) from New Delhi to Amritsar which was to arrive here at around 8.30 pm was delayed by some nine hours and the passengers deboarded the train in the wee hours on Tuesday.

Dr Jasbir Singh, a medical practitioner in New Delhi, who had travelled to Ludhiana last evening to attend a wedding, said: “I spent a couple of hours at New Delhi and then the whole night in the train which was far too delayed with the result that I missed the wedding celebrations. The government is talking about bullet train but first let them ensure timely running of trains that are already operational.”

Delayed trains

12013 New Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi Express (4 hrs), 12014 Amritsar-New Delhi Shatabdi Express (2.45 hrs), 12029 New Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi Express (5.30 hrs), 120030 Amritsar-New Delhi Shatabdi Express (2.40 hrs), 13005 Howrah-Amritsar Mail (21.45 hrs), 15210 Amritsar-Saharsa Jansewa Express (20.10 hrs), 12332 Jammu-Howrah Himgiri Express (18.47 hrs), 13006 Amritsar-Howrah Mail (15.30 hrs), 15211 Darbhanga-Amritsar Jannayak Express (10.30 hrs), 15209 Saharsa-Amritsar Jansewa Express (9.25 hrs), 15212 Amritsar-Darbhanga Jannayak Express (8.15 hrs), 12587 Gorakhpur-Jammu Amarnath Express (7.45 hrs), 15655 Kamakhya-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Express (6.50 hrs), 22423 Gorakhpur-Amritsar Jansadharan Express (6.10 hrs), 12203 Saharsa-Amritsar Garib Rath (6.10 hrs), 18101 Tatanagar-Jammu Express (5.05 hrs), 14673 Jaynanagr-Amritsar Shaheed Express (4.45 hrs), 18237 Bilaspur-Amritsar Chhattisgarh Express (4.18 hrs) and 15707 Katihar-Amritsar Amrapali Express (3.05 hrs).