Northern Railway Restores 214 Passenger Trains; 30 Still Cancelled After Delhi Protest

Synopsis

Northern Railway has restored 214 passenger train services in the Delhi region, in addition, 30 passenger train services were cancelled on Sunday, October 11. The disruption came after a massive strike of dozens of mail and express and short-distance services ahead of her planned protest demanding resignation of CMC. All stations were reopened on Saturday night and traffic diverted on Sunday. The Supreme Court also has a contempt petition filed with it on the issue of the cancellations, which is next up for hearing on Tuesday.

The Northern Railway has given a boost to 214 passenger train services in the Delhi area with 30 services still cancelled on Sunday, according to a report from Dainik Jagran. The step comes a day before a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and it is expected to help ease a rail shutdown which started on Friday.

How many services were cancelled

On Saturday, Indian Railways cancelled 245 trains, Business Standard had reported. The 40 mail and express trains were going towards Delhi and 35 outbound trains were unable to depart as their rakes were halted behind the inbound trains. Another 170 short-distance passenger trains were also cancelled.

Railways stated that the normal operation would start at midnight on Sunday. By Saturday evening, rail operations were returning to normal, the paper added.

The reason given, and the reaction

A number of zonal railways blamed “road congestion”, Business Standard reported. Railway veterans said the transfer was a strange one that they could not recall of this nature. The cancellations were to prevent protesters from coming to Delhi from other states, and to avoid inconvenience to passengers.

As traffic restored to normal, services were being resumed and this was being confirmed by Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay, the chief public relations officer of Northern Railway. According to the same report, North Western Railway had reduced the frequency of 13 journeys between Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi on October 9.

Metro and road curbs

DMRC had closed down 57 stations earlier. The number was reduced to 45 after the Supreme Court intervened on Friday and the gates opened at all stations at 10 pm on Saturday.

The Delhi Traffic Police continued its advisory on non-essential travel and it provided a list of 30 diversions starting from 6 am on Sunday.

The legal backdrop

Now transportation curbs are a part of litigation. The notices were issued by the Supreme Court on a contempt petition filed against it for violating its guidelines of shutting down trains and Metro services.

The Court stated that, unless restrictions are necessary for a public order situation, the rail and Metro services should be in operation as normal. It will be taken up again on Tuesday.

The experience of passengers and planners

Large-scale cancellation requires a period of time in order to allow rail operations to settle as rakes and crews need to be brought back in to their normal schedules. There are still 30 services to be cancelled. If any of them will be reinstated will depend on the pattern of protests and any new traffic advisories.