Mahabub Alam :
Tens of thousands of home-bound Eid passengers faced untold sufferings on Saturday at Kamalapur Railway Station, as no train except the Suborna Express left the station in time.
Almost all the passenger trains failed to maintain railway timetable and were running late by two to four hours.
The Dhaka-Rajshahi Dhumketu Express Train left Kamalapur at 9.00am instead of 6.00 a.m on Saturday. Dhaka-Khulna Sundarban Express Train departed at 9.20am instead of 6.20am.
Dhaka-Dinajpur Drutojan Express Train was late by 3.30 hours following departure at 9:30am while Dhaka-Chittagong Mahanagar Pravati left the station at 10:30am instead of its scheduled 7:40am
Ekota Express left Kamalapur for Dinajpur at 2:00pm instead of 10:00am.
Lalmonirhat-bound Rangpur Express was scheduled to depart the station at 8:00am. But the train did not arrive at the Kamalapur Railway till 2:40pm.
Mahanagr Godhuli was scheduled to arrive at Kamalapur around 2:50pm from Chittagong. But the information center said that it would arrive around 10:00 pm and depart at around 11:00pm.
On-duty officer at Information Centre of the Kamalapur Railway Station told the media that the unexpected delay happened due to excessive rush of passengers at almost every station.
Being informed about the train’s late running, Railway Minister Mojibul Huq arrived at the Kamalapur Railway Station at around 2:45 pm. Then Chittagong bound Suborna Express departed the station on time (at 3:00pm).
The railway minister told the journalists that every train took slightly longer time for at every station due to the excessive passengers, particularly women and children. It might be one of the reasons for the late running.
