Spl trains from Ranchi, Tata to Kol

Ranchi: The Indian Railways will operate three festival special trains from Ranchi and Tatanagar to Howrah (Kolkata) during the festive season to clear the rush of passengers. The first of these trains will depart from Tatanagar station on Thursday. As per government norms, all passengers arriving by these trains will have to go under home quarantine for 14 days.
South Eastern Railways’s Ranchi division on Tuesday said a special express train will operate daily between Ranchi and Howrah from October 17 to November 30, making a total of 45 trips between the two stations. “The train will leave Ranchi railway station at 9:30pm and reach Howrah at 5:10 am the next day. Likewise, the Ranchi-bound train will leave Howrah at 10:05pm and arrive here at 5:50am. The trains will have stoppages at Kharagpur, Tatanagar and Muri railway stations,” the division said in a statement.
The SER also notified the operation of a special festival special between Tatanagar and Howrah. The train will operate daily running as per the timings of the Tatanagar-Howrah Steel Express. On Monday evening, the Eastern Railways had announced to operate the Howrah-Ranchi Shatabdi Special Express from October 15 until further orders. The train will operate six days a week (barring Sunday), the zone had said.
While the operation of two trains were notified by ER and SER, the Railway Board on Tuesday evening issued a notification approving the operation of six special express trains. In the notification, the board directed SER to begin the operations of Anant Vihar-Ranchi special express, Ranchi-Jaynagar Special Express, Hatia-Lokmanya Tilak Special Express, Hatia-Yesvantpur weekly special express and Tatanagar-Yesvantpur special express from October 20.
Sources in the SER and Ranchi railway division said the Jharkhand government has been intimated about the operations of the trains. The state government is yet to take a call on the SER’s October 3 request seeking approval to resume operations of 28 express trains connecting six states.
Members of the trading community and lawmakers, including BJP’s Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth, advocated for the immediate resumption of trains. “The proposal has been forwarded to the office of chief secretary Sukhdev Singh. We are awaiting a formal order on this,” a senior official in the state department of transport told TOI. The official did not specify if the ER was given the nod for running the Shatabdi Express.
Meanwhile, Ranchi railway division said it is prepared to receive the train and manage the boarding and deboarding of passengers in compliance to the social distancing protocols. At present, Ranchi station is catering to Ranchi-New Delhi Rajdhani Special Express and Darbhanga-Secunderabad special express
“All the trains starting from Ranchi or making a stopover here are being parked at platform number 1, which has been equipped for the purpose. As many as four permanent kiosks have been set up for thermal scanning while adequate provisions have been made for hand sanitization. More than 1,000 chairs are being placed six feet apart. Adequate RPF and GRP personnel are deployed to maintain social distancing,” Niraj Kumar, chief public relations officer of the division, said.