As the curtains came down on the Tiruvarur–Pattukottai meter gauge section, set for BG conversion, people representing various sections bade an emotional farewell at the railway stations enroute to the last train in the section on Thursday.
At Pattukottai railway station, members of Environment Conservation Society and Tamil Nadu Deiveega Puratchi Pasarai, and local commuters garlanded the engine of Pattukottai–Tiruvarur passenger (56892 ) that left at 4 p.m.
Kantha Kalyanasundaram, president of the society, and A. Ramalingam, its secretary, presented shawls to the pilots, guard and the station master.
Speedy execution
In a statement, Mr. Kalyanasundaram urged the Railways to take effective steps for the speedy execution of the gauge conversion works in the interest of the large number of commuters.
Meanwhile, local people have urged the Railways to continue with the integrated unreserved ticketing system (IUTS) counters functioning at Pattukottai and Thiruthuraipoondi railway station, to enable them to book reserved tickets for long-distance trains being operated from other parts of the delta districts.
However, the Railways is yet to take a decision in this regard.
Railway sources here said that as per the norms such IUTS centres would be allowed to continue only when about 200 reservation applications were received a day.
At the counters in both these stations, just a little over 50 applications each are received now. Moreover, the old buildings at these stations would be demolished as part of BG conversion works.
