Special trains being run by Indian Railways to clear the summer rush is sparing no trouble for the travellers in providing harrowing experience as horrific tales of absence of service and basic facilities have been reported. All these special trains are running with five digit number starting with ‘zero’ and going by the treatment being meted out to these ‘specials’, one wonders whether Railways authorities are at all serious about the damage being caused to its image due to shoddy service. The other day the Pune-Nagpur special train provided yet another instance of how not to run services. A common feature of these special trains is that none of them are run as per fixed time table and hence prone to delay. In any given case, travellers are often to miss their commitments as due to congested pathways (tracks), these trains mostly run behind schedule. Sometimes the delay is of almost 24 hours, means people who might have some important appointment or needed to reach an important even the are bound to miss the same.

 

In short, Indian Railways is abusing its dominant and exclusive position in carrying long distance passengers and taking their consumers for granted. Absence of any other alternative means people have no option but to bear with shoddy services and curse their luck for getting caught in the whirlpool of mess, said, Satish Yadav, Member, Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee (ZRUCC). Take the case of 01166 Pune-Nagpur summer special on which the travellers were provided such a ‘special’ treatment and none of them would forget it so easily. As there is heavy rush of travellers on the route, many were elated to get confirmed reservation and hence opted for the same. But little did they realise the trouble they would be in for. First of all, most of the bogies in the train had run out of water and there was no way they could even go to answer nature’s call.

 

As usual the passenger first contacted the Ticket Checker who promised to do something, but later it was learnt that water would be made available only on reaching Bhusaval. Means till that time, for nearly four hours, the travellers would have to bear with this ‘little’ inconvenience. Yadav said he was getting so many calls from the travellers about absence of water. Even the dust bins in the compartments were not emptied. The special trains are mostly weekly in nature and run on other routes and rotated and due to paucity of time, they are not attended to by the staff at the originating station resulting in such horrid situations for passengers. However it must be pointed out that Railways run these special trains on special charges, meaning the ticket prices are on higher side compared to regular trains on the route. But even after paying extra money, Railways is not making any efforts to ensure comfort of the travellers on long distance routes.

 

The travellers then sought help on Rail Madad but beyond acknowledgment, there was no other comfort. Yadav said during the rush period, railways press in additional trains but due to shortage of staff, the cleanliness aspect often gets overlooked in such special trains. The staff is already hard pressed to put in place the regular trains, and as such, the additional trains running as special sometimes gets overlooked. Senior railway officials though aware of the ongoing situation have done little to ensure adequate manpower on the ground-level to ensure that the passengers’ long journey is comfortable and not disastrous.