Harrowing time for passengers

Hundreds of commuters went through a harrowing experience as they had to spend time on trains stuck at various places outside the city on Saturday due to remodelling work at the Arakkonam yard.

Though the work was completed on Sunday, it may take a few more days for railway operations along the route to become normal, say officials.

The engineering work carried out by Southern Railway brought to the fore the poor arrangements made by the authorities in mitigating the hardships faced by commuters.

The 17-day remodelling work executed by the Chennai division was to be completed on May 6.

From May 2 to 6, when the major work of installing a new signal system was to be taken up, it was projected that several trains — both long distance as well as suburban — would be cancelled and measures such as informing passengers through SMS had been taken.

‘No prior information’

However, several commuters complained they did not receive any information. Had they known they would have cancelled their journey, they said.

The commuters complained about lack of coordination between the State government and the railway authorities when such major works are being carried out in providing transport facilities to those stranded at various railway stations.

Vasan, a resident of Bengaluru, said he had booked a ticket on Chennai Express from Bengaluru on Friday to attend a wedding on Saturday morning, but reached the city only after the function. The train, which was supposed to start at 11.30 p.m. in Bengaluru, left only at 3 a.m., he said.

Similar complaints were made by hundreds of passengers bound for Chennai Central station after a number of trains were halted at various places such as Tiruttani, Katpadi, and Sholingur.

The common complaint was that trains were cancelled suddenly or were running late by several hours because of re-routing via Tiruttani, Jolarpettai, Katpadi, Tiruvannamalai and Villupuram, and some trains were diverted via Gudur-Renigunta.

A senior official of Southern Railway said the main engineering work of extending the platforms, straightening of tracks and re-installing a new signal system was completed on Sunday. However, it may take a few more days for normal services to resume, he added.

On Monday, Southern Railway cancelled several passenger trains. More than five long-distance trains, including Alappuzha-Chennai Central Express and Mangalore-Chennai Central Express, were late by more than 12 hours due to late running of the pairing train.