Passengers frustrated as no special trains announced for Sankranti

The South Central Railway (SCR), which used to operate special trains between Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, to cater to the huge demand from passengers ahead of festivals like Sankranti, Dasara, and peak tourist season, year after year, has not announced any special trains so far this year, drawing flak from passengers.

Thousands of people from Andhra Pradesh’s largest city Visakhapatnam, have settled in Hyderabad in view of better employment opportunities in the twin cities. With less than one-and-a-half months to go for Sankranti, where an exodus of families from the twin cities to their native places will be witnessed, discontent is brewing due to the failure of the SCR in announcing special trains.

Travellers are at their wits’ end as the Advance Reservation Period (ARP)—now reduced to 60 days from the earlier 90 days has a huge ‘waitlist,’ for most trains between Secunderabad and Visakhapatnam,’ and getting a berth on these trains is ruled out.

Additionally, rail travellers are irked as the SCR plies special trains between Secunderabad and Anakapalle, ignoring Visakhapatnam. They took to social media saying that these special trains, which have poor patronage, would run to full capacity had they been operated from Visakhapatnam Junction.

SCR seems to be content with operating the existing special trains between Secunderabad-Anakapalle, Cherlapalli-Berhampur and Cherlapalli-Bhubaneswar, and has been ignoring the demand to operate a special from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad.

The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has only extended the existing special trains between Visakhapatnam to Secunderabad, Tirupati and Bengaluru but has not announced any new specials to cater to the extra rush during Sankranti.

ZRUCC member Kanchumurti Eswar had recently written to the SCR GM seeking the operation of special trains between Hyderabad/Secunderabad and Visakhapatnam Junction as most of the trains were showing ‘Regret’ Waitlist. These included: Godavari, Garibrath, Duranto, East Coast, Janmaboomi, Falaknuma, Visakha, LTT Mumbai and also Vande Bharat trains.

“I received a reply that a decision on the special trains would be announced in December,” Mr. Eswar said.

Rail users wonder: Do the railways need to be reminded year after year that special trains have to be announced well ahead of the festivals to enable passengers to reserve their tickets during the ARP.