New Delhi: The passengers, who were already grappling with long waiting tickets, will now face more difficulties as over 100 trains will remain either cancelled or diverted due to the mega traffic block in Gorakhpur railway section till May 3.
Having no option in the summer season rush, the passengers either have to drop their planned trip or look for another option for travelling in the eleventh hour cancellation of trains.
According to the railway officials, some lines in Gorakhpur division will remain blocked due to on-going pre-non interlock work from 12 to 26 April and non-interlock work from 27 April to May 3 following which train cancellation, route change, short termination, short origination and re-scheduling will be done. The inspection of development work will be done by the Railway Safety Commissioner on May 3.
As per the Railways, due to pre-non interlock and non-interlock work over 110 trains will be affected because of cancelled, diversion, and short termination.
As the summer season is on and passenger influx is increasing each passing day, the travellers, who had already made a plan for a trip to go visit various places and booked their tickets in advance, are worried since they came to know about train cancellation, which were scheduled for Mumbai, Kolkata, Bihar, Prayagraj, and Punjab, including Gorakhpur-Delhi special train, Gorakhpur-Bandra Terminus special train, Saharsa-Anand Vihar, Razaul-Anand Vihar, Chhapra-Nautanwa-Chhapra Express, Gomti Nagar-Gorakhpur, Gorakhpur-Gonda passenger train, Gonda-Sitapur City passenger train, Lucknow Junction-Patliputra-Lucknow Junction Express, and several other trains.
In response to a question on the train cancellation issue, Sandeep Bhardwaj, who came to New Delhi Railway Station to book a ticket, told ETV Bharat, "The passengers are already worried about the long waiting list. If such trains get cancelled then it will be a double whammy for them. If a confirmed ticket gets cancelled due to train cancellation, the situation becomes almost impossible for a person to get the next confirmed ticket so Railways should provide some relief to us in this scenario."
Echoing similar sentiments, Dilip Kashyap, another person at railway station, told ETV Bharat, "The Railways should analyse the timings before putting mega blocks. On the one hand, authorities are trying to run Special Summer Trains, and on the other, they are cancelling regular trains on some sections for railway work which not only affect the people of the same area but other states too."
"Around 120 trains were cancelled due to the ongoing development work but the Railways has restored over 20 trains on such routes after seeing inconvenience of the passengers and the Railways is exploring other routes to resume more trains to provide relief to the travellers," a senior Railway official told ETV Bharat.
Asked about preparing a chart of non-peak season and peak season to carry out this work, the official of the Public Relations department said development work is an on-going process following that it is hard to fix time schedules for such work.
Tatkal Tickets Booking:
According to IRCTC information, tatkal E-ticket can be booked for selected trains one day in advance excluding the date of journey from the train originating station. It can be booked on the opening day from 10 hours for AC class and at 11 hours for non-AC class.
Tatkal Quota:
Tatkal booking facility provides confirmed/waitlisted tickets against Tatkal quota, in any class except 1 AC, for a journey between source/remote stations having Tatkal quota to destination.
