Rail activists criticise South Central Railway for cancelling Visakhapatnam special trains announced for Ugadi

Rail activists criticize South Central Railway for canceling Visakhapatnam trains, questioning crew shortage excuses and biased treatment towards the city.

Continuing their tirade against the South Central Railway on social media for cancellation of Visakhapatnam-Cherlapalli-Visakhapatnam special trains announced for Ugadi, rail activists wonder why the officials come up with excuses like crew shortage and execution of development works only when it comes to operation of trains from Visakhapatnam.

They wonder why crew shortage affects only special trains from Visakhapatnam to other destinations, but when it comes to running of special trains to and fro from other destinations, by passing Visakhapatnam, there is no crew shortage.

“One of the largest railway network doesn’t have enough manpower to run festival specials ?Visakhapatnam JN posted on ‘X’ tagging the Railway Minister and the Prime Minister.

In a separate post, tagging the Railway Minister and the Prime Minister, Visakhapatnam JN noted: “Shame on @SCRailwayIndia for telling silly reasons on special trains for the biggest festival of Telugu speaking States. Where are we heading? You guys don’t have crew to run special trains for festivals? Freight is more important?”

“Stop fooling people! You have no crew shortage when running specials for other destinations, but when it comes to Visakhapatnam, suddenly there’s an issue? This biased treatment is unacceptable! Whom are you fooling? It’s time for S Co R,” posted Raghuvamsi_2002 on ‘X’ tagging @AshwiniVaishnaw

As many as 10 long distance special trains are being routed through Duvvada and Vizianagaram, bypassing Visakhapatnam junction.

To add insult to injury, South Central Railway (SCR) has proposed to East Coast Railway (E Co R) requesting it to either cancel or divert 20805/06 Visakhapatnam-New Delhi-Visakhapatnam express AP Express, 20803/04 Visakhapatnam-Gimb-Visakhaptnam weekly express, 208019/20 Puri-Okha-Puri weekly express and 12803/04 Visakhapatnam-Nizamuddin-Visakhapatnam bi-weekly express in view of pre-NI and NI works at Mahbubabad station and at Bellampalli Yard as it was found operationally not feasible to handle the above mentioned during the pre-NI and NI works. These trains could be diverted via Vizianagaram, Rayagada, Titlagarh and Nagpur, it said.