Danapur division's action plan may give relief to passengers

PATNA: The Danapur division of East Central Railway (ECR) has chalked out an action plan to streamline traffic movement in the
division.

The action plan is both short and long term, said new Danapur DRM Gyan Prakash Srivastava. Talking to TOI, he admitted that the mainline section of the division right from Mughalsari to Jhajha has already reached the saturation point due to enormous load of traffic movements on both Up and Down lines on this particular route. As a result, long distance passenger trains often get stranded either at outer signals or at small stations for long causing much inconvenience to passengers, he said, adding the proposed action plan is likely to give much relief to the passengers.

The DRM said that the railways have identified the bottlenecks causing traffic congestion on each section of the division. Under the new directive, no passenger train would now stop at outer signal or midway for want of path clearance. These trains would now stop at platform of any station so that passengers could get facility of water, tea and snacks in the sultry weather condition. However, efforts are on to keep tracks clear for receiving each long distance passenger train at its destination only, he said.

According to the DRM, the railways have already started working on short term plan to benefit the passengers travelling by long distance trains as well as local commuter trains.

The railways have decided to increase the line capacity by building intermediary block huts (IBH) on the mainline section so that passenger trains are not bunched up for want of track availability. Besides, crossovers would be built at each bottleneck points to give an easy passage to passenger trains, he said.

The DRM said that several pairs of trains are being held up due to alarm chain pulling (ACP), hosepipe disconnection and for other reasons by the vested interests under the division. This has a cascading effect on the movement of trains, particularly mail and express trains. Thus, RPF, RPSF and GRP are being instructed to deal with these problems effectively to help the railways run mail and express trains uninterrupted, he said and added that he would soon hold a meeting with the top brass of the state government in this connection.

Under the long term plan, the DRM informed that the railways would improve terminal facilities at Patna Junction, Rajendra Nagar, Danapur, Rajgir and Bakhtiarpur stations to cope with increasing traffic load in the division.

Source : Times of India