CR cancels 26 long distance trains

Staff Reporter :

In light of outbreak of Coronavirus, Central Railway has cancelled 26 long distance Mail/ Express trains till March 31, including about a dozen trains to and from Nagpur. S P Dudhe, Chief Commercial Manager (CCM), issued the list of 22 trains that stands cancelled due to poor occupancy. Later on P N Ramchandran, STM (Cog), added four more trains to list of joint procedure order to ease pressure on railway staff. S G Rao, Assistant Commercial Manager (Goods) and also divisional spokesperson, Central Railway, Nagpur Division, told The Hitavada that Headquarters had sought data about occupancy of trains. Based on the feedback and after decision these trains run were cancelled till March 31.

Railways too has been hit by low patronage as people have cancelled their journey plans as per advisory by Government authorities. Therefore to adjust the movement of rakes and provide respite to railway staff the cancellation of trains was decided. While trains ex-Nagpur are cancelled from March 20 onwards, for trains coming from Mumbai and Pune end the cancellation kicks in from March 23 onwards. The run of Howrah-Mumbai-Howrah Duronto Express has been curtailed from current four to three days. Train Nos 11201/11202 LTT-Ajni Express/ Ajni-LTT are cancelled from March 23 to 30 and from March 20 to 27 as per the notification of Headquarters. Similarly, 11401-11402 Nandigram Express is cancelled from March 23 to 31 from Mumbai and also from Nagpur. Train No 11417 Pune-Nagpur Humsafar is cancelled from March 19 to 27 and 11418 Nagpur-Pune Humsafar from March 20 to 27.

Train No 22111 Bhusawal-Nagpur Super Express via Khandwa-Itarsi is cancelled from March 18 to 29 and 22112 Nagpur-BSL from March 19 to 30. Train No 12262 Howrah-CSMT is cancelled from March 24 to 31, 12261 CSMT-Howrah from March 25 to April 1.

Platform tickets to cost Rs 50 to avoid crowding To avoid crowding on railway stations, Central Railway’s Nagpur Division has hiked platform tickets price to Rs 50 with immediate effect. The hike has come into effect from Tuesday onwards. People who purchased platform tickets were shocked at having to shell out Rs 50. A railway release said the hike was done as per power vested with Divisional Railway Manager (DRM). The Commercial Circular empowers division authorities to hike the platform tickets to cut down crowding at stations. Last time the platform ticket rates were hiked to Rs. 20 at some stations to prevent over crowding on platforms. South East Central Railway (SECR) too is likely to hike the rates of platform tickets soon, it is learnt.