Late trains: Passengers protest as electricity outage delays trains

About eight trains were stranded for seven hours after stoppages clogged stations.

SUKKUR: Hundreds of passengers ransacked railway offices in protest against an inordinate delay in the arrival of passenger trains at Rohri railway station on Thursday morning.

The pause in passenger trains running to and from Sindh and Punjab left passengers enraged. They staged a sit-in at the railway track, shouted slogans against the railway authorities and broke into the station and assistant station masters’ offices and broke the furniture.

The Karachi-bound Karakoram Express, Karachi Pakistan Express, Faisalabad-bound Millat Express, and Rawalpindi-bound Tezgam Express arrived at Rohri railway one after another. The locomotives were detached and sent for refuelling but when a long time passed and they did not return, the passengers got restless.

The Rohri railway station master, Sagheeruddin, tried to calm the mob, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The lag in the four departures meant the Rohri railway station was not able to accommodate other trains. Hence, the Multan-bound Zikria Express stopped at Begmanji railway station, Peshawar-bound Khyber Mail at Khairpur railway station, Jacobabad-bound Sukkur Express at Setharja railway station and the Karachi-bound Millat Express stopped at the Rohri railway station’s outer signal.

All eight of these trains were stranded for over seven hours. According to Sagheeruddin, the subsequent arrival of four trains at the station in quick succession paired with an electricity outage delayed the refuelling. The station master said he understood the people’s annoyance but the tanks had to be filled up manually and that took lots of time. However, by 9:30 am, the trains were refuelled and sent to their destinations.

Meanwhile, some used the situation to their advantage. Food and drink vendors doubled their prices for the bottles of mineral water and stale food. A bottle of water went from Rs25 to Rs40 while biryani prices went from Rs50 a plate to Rs100. Others resorted to outright theft and many passengers lost their valuables to pickpockets and muggers.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2011.