How it will be solved?

No solution in sight to night train problem

Jayanta Gupta TNN 31.10.2011

The restrictions started since the Jnaneswari carnage

Kolkata: It’s been over 19 months since passenger trains stopped running at night through Jangalmahal. But there seems to be no solution in sight yet. While the governments of Orissa and Jharkhand have agreed to provide assistance to the railways if trains are run at night through Maoist-affected areas, security agencies in West Bengal have refused to give a green signal along the Kharagpur-Tatanagar and Kharagpur-Adra sections of South Eastern Railway (SER). 
    “There is nothing we can do till security agencies give us the clearance. After all, passenger security is at stake. Law and order being a state subject, the railways can’t take a unilateral decision. We are hopeful that the crisis will be resolved soon and are extending the restrictions by seven days at a time only. Presently, the restrictions will be in place till November 3. We know that passengers are unhappy with the revised schedules, but we are also facing operational problems keeping all the trains running on regularly,” an SER official said. 
    The restrictions came into place after the Jnaneswari Express disaster on May 28, 2010. Since then, nearly all westbound trains from Howrah have been rescheduled. The trains that left Howrah in the evening are now starting early in the morning. Passengers have to either book cars in advance to reach the station or spend the night there to catch these trains. Some confusion still prevails — particularly among passengers planning to board from midway stations — about the train schedules. 
    Some trains are also being run along diverted routes, creating problems for passengers at smaller stations. Even important trains like the Howrah-Hatia Express are following a different route through Dhanbad and Bokaro. From the operational point of view, SER is cutting a fine line as many trains share rakes with others. “The original rake-sharing 
programme had been made keeping the pre-restriction timings in mind. Now that the timings have changed, it is touch and go for several trains. For instance, the Gitanjali Express shares its rake with the Sri Jagannath Express to Puri. If the Gitanjali Express to Howrah is delayed, the train to Puri also has to be rescheduled,” the official said. 
    Several high-level meetings have been convened, but to no avail. All the state government could suggest to the railways was to illuminate the tracks and install CCTV cameras along the affected stretches and run trains with armoured locomotives. With the new state government making efforts to sort out the Maoist issue, there was a time when it was felt that the restrictions would be withdrawn soon. However, with recent developments pointing to the Maoists’ hardline stance, no solution seems to be in sight.