Ambala: 80 trains delayed, Railways faces operational challenges
Nitish Sharma
Ambala, January 17
While fog continues to affect the train traffic and cause inconvenience to the passengers, it has also been posing a serious operational challenge to the Railways authorities.
The line capacity (the capacity of running trains on a given section of the line in a day) of the tracks reduces drastically due to trains running behind their schedule. Rescheduling of trains, their cancellation and information dissemination regarding delayed trains make the operations complex for the authorities.
Nearly 80 trains were reportedly running behind their schedule on Wednesday. These included the Vande Bharat Express, Garib Rath and several superfast and other trains. The delay ranged between 30 minutes and 15 hours.
The Delhi-Amritsar Vande Bharat Express (22487) was running late by 1.5 hours, while the New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Vande Bharat (22439) reached its destination after two hours of delay. The Subedarganj-MCTM Express (22431) was running late by 5.5 hours. The New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Express (12011) was rescheduled by around 6 hours and it reached Ambala after 2 pm, while its scheduled time was 8.18 am. The Howrah-Kalka Netaji Express was running late by 15 hours.
Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Ambala division, Naveen Kumar said, “About 80 trains were affected due to fog. For the convenience of passengers, regular announcements are being made at the railway stations, extra counters have been set up for processing refunds and messages are being sent to the passengers about trains’ delay. We expect the situation to improve in the next few days.”
Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Mandeep Singh Bhatia said, “The operations become very complex due to fog as the line capacity of the tracks reduces drastically. The scheduled movement of the trains and freight operations also gets affected.”
“Another major challenge is the maintenance of rakes. As it takes six-eight hours for the maintenance and inspection, it makes the rescheduling difficult. The situation is challenging for the drivers and the other staff too. All required measures are being taken to ensure the safety of passengers,” he added.
Extra counters for processing refunds
For the convenience of passengers, regular announcements are being made at the railway stations, extra counters have been set up for processing refunds and messages are being sent to the passengers about trains’ delay. — Naveen Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager, Ambala division
