Passengers travelling to their ancestral homes have faced delays in train departures on the second day of Eid journeys.
The train service at Kamalapur Railway Station has suffered heavy delays on the second day of Eid journeys.
There were fewer crowds of passengers compared to the first day but delay in train departure still caused problems for them.
Chilahati-bound Neelsagar Express, Rangpur Express, Chattogram-bound Mahanagar Prabhati Express, and Khulna-bound Sundarban Express started late from Kamalapur Railway Station on Saturday, the second day of Eid journey.
Neelsagar Express departed from Kamalapur Railway Station around 11am instead of its 8am, causing plight to its passengers.
Rangpur Express, which departed from the station at 10:15am, was delayed by one hour.
A special train was arranged for the passengers as the regular Rangpur Express could not reach the station on schedule. Therefore, a change has been brought to the seating plan causing inconvenience to the passengers, according to railway staff.
“I booked an AC compartment but can’t find my seat now. Officials on the train could not offer any solution,” businessman Nuruzzaman told the media.
“The train management, including schedule, will never be fixed in Bangladesh,” said the frustrated businessman.
Another passenger on the train, Abul Bashar, expressed his anger over not getting his designated seat. “I haven’t got any seat. My wife is accompanying me too. Only Allah knows how I’ll travel. I told the station manager but it was of no use,” he said.
“We’ll run 52 trains throughout the day. So far 17 trains, including inter-district and mail trains, have left the station,” said Kamalapur Railway Station Manager Mohammed Aminul Haque. “Four among the 52 trains have been delayed.”
“Rangpur Express started seven hours late yesterday but today we are using alternative according to the assurance of the minister. It left just a while ago.”
He admitted that there has been mismanagement in the distribution of seats.
“We’ve tried our best to replace the seats on the train. This train has two AC chair coaches less than the original one, so we replaced the seats with those first class chair coach or first class cabin. We tried to allocate all the seats accordingly. But some of them had to be placed on general class due to lack of required number of seats,” he told the passengers.
“Change in the schedule of Rangpur Express happened as one of its coaches got damaged reaching Bangabandhu Bridge despite starting on schedule on May 30. It took four hours to fix the problem causing delay in its departure even today. We hope it won’t happen tomorrow,” the official said explaining the delay in departure of Rangpur Express.
Khulna-bound Sundarban Express left the station at 8.20am instead of 7.19am. Chattogram-bound Mahanagar Prabhati Express was half an hour late to start from Kamalapur.
The railway authority sold tickets in advance for Eid journeys by trains which began on Friday. The railways minister apologised to the passengers for the delay in departure of several trains on Friday and promised it would not happen from Saturday, reports bdnews24.com.
