Passengers run amok at Howrah station

KOLKATA: Several hundred suburban passengers at the Howrah railway station damaged furniture and fittings at the deputy station superintendent’s office and the adjoining VIP lounge ‘Atithi’ on Saturday morning. The passengers were agitated as the Howrah-bound Arambagh local, by which they were travelling, was delayed by nearly 45 minutes. Many said that it is a regular occurrence.
The 37360 Arambagh-Howrah local leaves Arambagh at 8.35am and is supposed to reach Howrah at 10.45am.According to a passenger, the train seldom reaches Howrah before 11am. As there are only two trains between Arambagh and Howrah during the morning peak hours, both are extremely crowded and passengers suffer during unscheduled stoppages.
“On Saturday, the train was packed as usual by the time it reached the Howrah carshed. Thereafter, it took nearly 30 minutes to cover the four km distance to Howrah station. The train finally reached Howrah at 11.20am. People were agitated as they were delayed for work and rushed to the deputy SS’s office but received no satisfactory explanation. Some people then lost their cool and starting banging on doors and tables,” a commuter said.
Eastern Railway officials admitted that maintaining punctuality during that time of the day becomes a problem. One of them said that there is a bunching of Howrah-bound (Down) trains as there is a lot of road traffic at a level crossing gate in Rishra. “Once a train gets stuck midway due to delay in shutting the level crossing gate, others are also delayed. There is a cascading effect. Finally, with a large number of trains reaching Howrah one after the other, there is a shortage of platforms and some are delayed at the carshed,” one of them said.
A source also said unscientific extension of trains and increase in number of coaches have resulted in congestion. “Take the Howrah-Bhagalpur Kaviguru Express for instance. This train originally ran up to Bolpur. When it was extended to Bhagalpur in 2018, it became a 15-coach train. However, it departs from platform 1 of Howrah and blocks platform 2 as well around 10.40 am. That leaves two important platforms out of commission for incoming local trains during morning peak hours,” he said.