RailEnquiry

NEW DELHI: Railway stations across the city witnessed a mad rush two days before Diwali as people made plans to meet their family members in other states during the festive week. According to the railways commercial department, 35 lakh passengers have left the city in past two days. The railways has recorded 30% additional footfall in view of the upcoming festivals — Diwali, Chhath Puja and Bhai Dooj.With the highest number of special trains being run this year and a significant augmentation of coaches since Durga Puja, many hail this as a record. Though the railways has made all possible arrangements — even stopping sale of tickets at platforms from November 11 to November 23, and making alternate arrangements to ensure trains bound for Bihar, UP and West Bengal do not arrive on corresponding platforms — the rush near the general compartments could hardly be contained. This is despite the presence of a special contingent of RPF placed before coaches at the instance of Northern Railway GM Vijay Kumar Gupta, who inspected the New Delhi station.This year alone, 80 special trains are running on Northern Railway, which will make 1,762 trips during Chhath. The passengers, however, complained that the special trains were not on time. "I had taken the special 9pm train to Lucknow. The arrival time was 5.50am, but the train came six hours late,'' said Sucheta Lalchandani. Other passengers to Bihar said most of the special trains, especially those to Anand Vihar, were eight to 11 hours behind schedule.Additional ticket counters have been provided over the entire Northern Railway. Of these, 25 extra booking counters for reserved tickets have become functional in Delhi area, of which 7 are in IRCA. For unreserved tickets, seven additional counters have been provided at both New Delhi railway station and Anand Vihar Terminal, while four have been provided at Old Delhi.