NEW DELHI: Sudhir Kumar was to appear for a job interview in Delhi on Monday. To make sure he arrived well in time, the resident of Bhagalpur in Bihar had booked himself in a train that was to reach Delhi on Saturday. But the Bhagalpur Garib Rath that he boarded had not arrived in Delhi till Monday morning. The railway website said the train was 48 hours behind schedule.
Like Kumar, the schedules of thousands of passengers have been thrown totally off-track across fog-hit north India and beyond. The delays this season have been more severe then previous years, exposing the Railways' inability to deal with the situation.
"I waited in the station with my wife and children for more than 20 hours before my train, Purvottar Sampark Kranti Express, finally left the New Delhi station... What's really frustrating is that neither the rail enquiry service nor any official could give me updates on when the train would start," said Tarun Sharma, a passenger.
A hapless Railways is waiting for the weather to clear in the fog zone — a 700km stretch between Ghaziabad and Mughalsarai — for the situation to normalize.
On Monday, 16 express trains and another dozen passenger trains were cancelled. Despite that at least seven trains was delayed by over 20 hours and another 16 for more than 10 hours.
The Rewa-Anand Vihar Express was 33 hours late, the Porvortar Sampark Kranti Express by 26 hours, the West Bengal Samparkranti Express also by 26 hours and the Bihar Sampark Kranti by 30 hours. Sources in north central railway said shallow fog was setting in from as early as 10.30pm and in the Kanpur-Tundla stretch (which trains enter early morning in order to reach Delhi), it lifts only around 10.15am.
"It is an unusual situation," said a northern railway spokesperson, denying any lack of preparedness. "Everything is put up on enquiry number 139 and we are monitoring each train real time, through GPS. Every delay is put up on the notice board. We are ensuring none of the restrooms get too overcrowded in this challenging weather. We have placed teams led by mechanical and electrical engineers at all our stations and the station master controls the movements of empty coaches entering the washing line. We are readying trains for the return journey within five hours even as the minimum primary and secondary maintenance requires at least four to six hours,'' said the spokesperson.
Railway employees deployed at the stations felt the failure of the fog safety device to take off has proved. The Railways' preparation to run trains safely in foggy conditions depended on this device.
The GPS-based fog safe device though has failed to produce the desired results during trials in the past two years. The trials were carried out in trains in the Delhi-Ambala section last winter, which is known for its dense fog cover.
Trains to fog-hit Delhi running up to 2 days late
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Trains to fog-hit Delhi running up to 2 days late
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Trains to fog-hit Delhi running up to 2 days late
