With mercury decreasing every passing day, the scene at the Tatanagar railway station is getting quite depressing. Numerous passengers are facing trouble due to the delay in long-distance trains, thanks to the foggy weather conditions, and the situation is unchanged for the past few days in the North.
Amidst dense fog and mist, enveloping northern parts of the country, several trains coming to Jharkhand from New Delhi and other destinations have started arriving late.
As many as half-a-dozen trains — New Delhi-Puri Neelanchal Express, New Delhi-Bhubaneshwar Sampark Kranti Express, New Delhi- Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani Express, Puri-New Delhi Purushottam Superfast Express, Anandvihar- Santragachi Express and Jammu Tawi Express which runs via Tatanagar have been running late way behind schedule on Wednesday. Tatanagar falls under the Chakradharpur division of south Eastern Railway.
Rajdhani Express, which arrives at Tatanagar at 10.35am, was delayed by around 14 hours. The train is expected to reach Tatanagar around mid-night, said O P Sharma, station manager of Tatanagar. The scheduled departure of the train from the originating station (Bhubaneshwar) is 9.15am. However, as it will arrive inordinately late, the departure from Bhubaneshwar will have to be rescheduled.
Neelanchal Express normal arrival schedule of 7.30 am , the train was expected to arrive at around 6.30 pm, a delay of 11 hours.
The Puri-bound Purushottam Superfast Express was running four hours late. The scheduled arrival time of the train at Tatanagar is 8.30pm, but the train is expected past midnight.
The schedule of Sampark Kranti Express, a bi-weekly train heading for Bhubaneswar from New Delhi was badly hit. The train was supposed to arrive at Tatanagar at 4.30 am, but rolled in at 5 pm on Wednesday, a delay of over 12 hours.
The Anandvihar- Santragachi Express and Jammu-Tawi Express were also running late by over 10 hours at the time of filing this report. Both the trains were expected to reach Tatanagar around midnight.
Two trains of Ranchi railway division, which falls under the South Eastern Railway were delayed. The Swarna Jayanti Express, which runs via Bokaro, reached Ranchi at 8.25 am. The train was supposed to arrive Ranchi at 4.45 pm yesterday. The Amritsar-Ranchi Jammu Tawi Express also got delayed by seven hours.
Railway authorities said that they were taking necessary steps to help passengers get refunds for cancellation of tickets. “Several passengers who were supposed to catch connecting trains got their tickets cancelled at Tatanagar,” said OP Sharma, the
station manager.