Like every year, the Railway Board is running more than 350 special trains for the Holi festival. But due to the ongoing large-scale rail safety works, 407 regular passenger trains are being partially or completely canceled every day.
Every day dozens of trains reach their destinations late by 2 to 6 hours due to disruptions in operations. This includes the popular Mail-Express, Superfast as well as premium trains Rajdhani Express. Under such circumstances, lakhs of railway passengers going home along with their families on Holi festival are facing a lot of trouble.
Railway officials say that the financial year 2022-23 will end in March. That’s why the work of upgrading the railway track, interlocking, electrical works, etc. is going on in full swing. Megha blocks are being taken for railway safety works so that security works can be done.
The operation of trains running on the track is getting affected due to Megha block or block. Kashi Vishwanath Express coming to Delhi on Thursday was delayed by 3.15 minutes, Bihar Sampark Kranti by 3.45 minutes, Durg Jammu Tawi by five hours, Karnataka Express by six hours, Mangadh Express by two hours, Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani by 4.30 minutes.
Similarly, trains on the Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Jammu, and Delhi-Mumbai routes are running late by two to six hours. Apart from running late on regular trains (trains with timetables), a large number of trains are being partially or fully canceled every day. This situation has persisted for the last two weeks. According to the statistics of the Railway Board, 296 regular trains have been canceled completely and 101 regular trains partially on Thursday. This situation will continue even now.
The Railway Board is canceling regular trains on the one hand during the Holi festival while running 350 trains in the name of the Holi special on the other. Apart from this, 173 special trains will be run keeping the crowd in mind. These trains will run between cities like Delhi, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Patna, Muzaffarnagar, Kolkata, Ranchi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, etc.
Although common rail passengers refrain from traveling in special trains during any festival, the reason for this is that there is no timetable for special trains. Such trains are run in between the timetable of regular trains. This is the reason why the special train is made to stand midway in the loop line and the regular train is flagged off first. This sequence continues till the special train reaches its destination. That’s why there is time to run the special train but there is no time to reach the destination.