With the flood fury continuing in West Bengal and Bihar, train services on Northeast Frontier Railway were still in disarray, as its network still remained breached in Bihar’s Kishanganj, Katihar and Araria districts and full connectivity could not be restored before August 28, a release said on Saturday.
The NF railway release said restoration work was on in war footing in all the locations, but full connectivity would still take over a week.
“It is expected that if the situation does not deteriorate further, connectivity will be restored by 28th August,” the release said.
However, to alleviate the problems of passengers bound for or leaving the northeast, and the movement of the goods, the NF Railway has made Kishanganj station available for loading of goods or essential commodities and merchants can now place indents for placement of rakes at that station.
“A direct train service has been started between Dalkhola and Dibrugarh which is in addition to the presently running daily special trains between Dalkhola-Guwahati and Guwahati-Dibrugarh.
“At the same time Raiganj (on Barsoi-Radhikapur section) which got connected to Katihar and Malda after restoration of bridge no. 3 on Saturday, will now have daily service available to Malda Town and Katihar,” the release said.
Direct train service from Katihar to Raiganj will be started by extending running of Seemanchal Express from Katihar later on Saturday.
“As the track between Dalkhola and Raiganj continues to remain breached (till bridge no 133 is restored), passengers can avail bus service between these two stations which are located at close vicinity of the four-lane National Highway,” it said.