Eastern Railway to recommence suburban EMU & local train services from Monday

Eastern Railway will recommence suburban EMU and or local train services within its jurisdiction in West Bengal for general public after nearly six months as per normal timetable from Monday maintaining COVID restrictions, an official said here on Sunday.

It will run more than 920 services in Sealdah division and more than 480 in Howrah division in up and down directions, an ER official said.

West Bengal government in its latest order on containing spre of Covid-19 pandemic, has allowed intra-state local train movement with 50 per cent seating capacity.

Eastern and South Eastern Railway have been running staff special trains in ir respective zones.

Suburban EMU and or local train services were suspended by West Bengal government from May 7 to check spre of coronavirus during second phase of pandemic.

"ER is all set to resume intra-state passenger train services including suburban EMU services with 50 per cent seating capacity as per vice of Government of West Bengal," ER Spokesperson Ekalabya Chakraborty said.

" number of local trains will be as it was before onset of COVID in March 2020," he said.

Chakraborty said that sanitisation of train compartments, coach interiors and station premises with special emphasis on high contact areas were being done .

ER spokesperson h earlier told PTI that Kolkata-hequartered zonal railway is rey to run local train services according to regular timetable from November 1.

With state government relaxing restrictions on local train movement from October 31 ER is running its services as per its holiday schedule on Sunday.

Regarding ensuring that 50 per cent seating capacity is maintained as per state government's directive, he said that Eastern Railway will deploy RPF personnel and would also want state ministration to help in maintaining restrictions on number of passengers.

Eastern Railway carries bulk of local and suburban passengers in its Howrah and Sealdah divisions, with lakhs of passengers depending on se train services for ir daily commute.

South Eastern Railway, anor zonal railway hequartered here, said that it was restarting its local train services in a phased manner in its Kharagpur division.

"In accordance with visory issued by government of West Bengal, it has been decided by South Eastern Railway to restore its Suburban/EMU locals in a phased manner plying in Howrah-Kharagpur-Midnapur, Shalimar-Santragachi, Panskura-Haldia, Santragachi-Amta and Tamluk-Digha sections over Kharagpur Division with effect from October 31, 2021," an SER official said.

It decided to restore services of 48 EMU locals from Sunday, with 23 in Up direction and 25 in down direction, he said.