East Coast Railway ( EcoR) has stepped up efforts in restoring services of most trains plying between Howrah and Puri before the puja festival.
The matter has been taken up by ECoR officials at the highest levels of the railway board and the South Eastern railways. Railway Board and SE Railway may consider the request of ECoR in restoring the trains.
The trains primarily in focus for restoration from October 1 2008 are Bhubaneswar Janshatabdi Express, Amaravati Express.
Trains currently running on a roundabout route - Falaknuma and Yashwantpur Express, will travel on its normal route. Services of the high-occupancy and important Bhubaneswar-Howrah Dhauli Express has been restored from September 16, after remaining cancelled for almost three months.
ECoR General Manager A K Goyal said, “ we are making efforts of restoring the demanding trains, but it all depends on the SE Railways, on how fast they can make the trains available to us.”
Janshatabdi, Amaravati, Falukunuma and Yashwantpur Express are trains belonging to SE Railway and originating from Howrah.
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An ECoR spokesperson said, “we have received representations from different sections of passengers and various organisations for restoration of the trains”.
ECoR has informal feedbacks that the railway board and the SE Railway authorities may keep to their requests and restore the services of these trains from October 1 2008.
The biggest facilitator for restoring the trains like Bhubaneswar Janshatabdi is the setting up of a temporary 350 feet bridge over Keleghai river between Bhakrabad and Nayagarh on the Howrah-Balasore section.
An expert bridge restoration gang (BRG) from North-East is working on the setting up of the bridge. For quick and efficient service a cross over and a cabin has already been set up for the temporary bridge. The last date for restoration of the temporary bridge over Keleghai is September 30 2008. The permanent bridge over Keleghai was washed away in the flood and rains that swept Orissa on June 16 2008.
SE Railway officials said that it would take quite a long time in restoring the permanent bridge to its original shape, which is being made over by a temporary bridge.
Meanwhile, ECoR and SE Railway officials said the freight traffic on iron ore is once again rising after witnessing a fall by about 50 per cent during the middle of September. This was mainly on account of one of country’s largest iron ore producer National Mineral Development Corporation ( NMDC) slipping on its production figures due to rainy season and inclement weather.
Goyal said, iron ore movement on the K K Line is almost normal and about 11 to 13 rakes are being loaded. But the problem continues to be in the private line of Jagpura and Jarauli via Keonjhar where indents have been completely wiped out and there is no loading of iron ore.
The normal loading on this line is 6-7 rakes per day. The iron ore movement has also been adversely affected due to machine problems faced by NMDC.
Officials from SE Railways said, the average placing of rakes on September 16 and 17 2008 was around 28 and 32 as against the normal of 55 and 60 due to low loading of iron ore. The figures have gone up to about 52 and 55 in the last two days with indents currently standing at 14,000 rakes as against about 7000 a few days ago.