‘Track maintenance work during festival season disrupts holiday travel plans’ in coastal Karnataka

The track maintenance works undertaken by the Indian Railways during the festive season are leading to cancellation/rescheduling of trains and, in turn, affecting holiday travel plans, alleged passengers.

While South Western Railway (SWR) has cancelled day train services between Bengaluru and Mangaluru/Karwar during the Navaratri/Dasara holidays to undertake track maintenance works on the Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road Ghat section, Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd., (KRCL) has cancelled services of Mangaluru Central-Madgaon-Mangaluru Central Passenger (56616/56615) between Karwar and Madgaon for a few days and rescheduled services for some other days between October 1 and October 20 for maintenance works between Madgaon and Karwar.

Though the KRCL had announced the Madgaon-Mangaluru Central Passenger would depart with a 2.40 hours delay against the scheduled departure on Tuesday at 2.15 p.m., the train operated late up to 4.53 hours till Surathkal to reach Mangaluru Central with a four-hour delay at 2 a.m., instead of 9.55 p.m. on October 14, said Uday Bhandarkar, a passenger from Kundapura.

While the corporation had not announced any rescheduling of the service for October 14, the train operated with 4.30 hours delay till Surathkal to reach Central with 3.22 hours delay at 1.17 a.m. on October 15.

Coincides with Navaratri

Mr. Bhandarkar regretted that the track maintenance works scheduled by the KRCL coincide with the Navaratri celebrations wherein thousands of people from coastal Karnataka travel to Goa to offer prayers to their family deities. Returning to places along the coast beyond midnight with families is difficult. With public transport virtually not available in those hours, it would be highly difficult and unsafe for families to reach home, he said.

Change schedule

Mr. Bhandarkar said, “While we understand that track infrastructure and power maintenance are essential for safety, scheduling these works during major festivals causes distress among passengers.

“We request the Railways to postpone the ongoing track and power maintenance works for at least one week until the Navaratri festival concludes,” he said.

As per the KRCL notification, Madgaon-Mangaluru Central Passenger would have a 90-minute delayed start on October 16 and 18 and 160 minutes on October 20.

Cascading effect

The KRCL spokesperson told The Hindu that the delays on October 13 and 14 were due to major track renewal works on the Madgaon-Karwar section. As the KRCL predominantly operates on a single line section, delays in one section would have a cascading effect on train movements in subsequent sections affecting the onward journey.