Golden Temple mail cancelled till situation becomes normal

Ludhiana: Due to low occupancy in one of the oldest running passenger train heading towards the financial capital (Mumbai) from Amritsar via Ludhiana railway station after a large numbers of passenger cancelled their train tickets owing to rise in the number of Covid-19 cases across the nation, Northern Railway authorities have taken a decision to partially cancel the Golden Temple Mail train until the situation comes to normalcy. The railways is struggling to cope up with the huge financial losses which is being faced by them for the past five months following railway ministry’s decision to suspended all major long-route passengers train across the nation.
The decision has been taken by the higher authorities of the Northern Railway after analysing monthly occupancy reports of limited trains passing through the major stations of the northern region of the country (including Ludhiana). Apart from that, Northern Railway authorities are ready to face huge losses in the next few days as passengers are converging on the reservation counters to get refund on their train tickets for trains not being run by the authorities concerned after August 12.
After cancellation of this main long route train service, Ferozepur division is left with only one major long route passenger train, Paschim Express, which is being run towards financial capital (Mumbai) from Amritsar via Ludhiana and other major stations of Northern Railway region.
Moreover, Northern Railway has extended their decision to not change the route of the lone train heading towards (Mumbai) as the train passes through the Sahnewal-Chandigarh-Ambala railway station for getting more passengers to overcome the issue of low occupancy in these. Although railway authorities have not changed the timing of the superfast train as the train will cross through the city railway station as per the respective time table after having a 10-minute stoppage for boarding local passengers.
Speaking to a high rank official on the condition of anonymity, he said, “We have been running two trains for Mumbai from Amritsar via Ludhiana railway station for the past two months but failed to get adequate response to the Golden Temple train because it runs during night and a large number of passengers have restricted themselves to getting entries to big cities of the country like Mumbai and Delhi. Although, after analysing the monthly occupancy report of main long route trains, the authorities have partially suspended its service for the next few days until passenger rush increases on this route.”
“The railways has decided to extend its decision to not change the present running route as the same train will pass through Chandigarh. We are getting regular demand from that side of the railway route to resume the service of one of long route passengers train for ferrying local passengers towards Delhi or Mumbai side. We have updated the revised time-table boards and informed the ticket checking staff for creating adequate awareness on this development, so that no local passengers faces inconvenience of travelling on a different route train,” said the official.