Rail commuters have condemned Southern Railway’s decision to suspend some of the special trains operated on main line.
In a statement, Papanasam Train Passengers Association secretary T. Saravanan wondered how there could be good patronage for skeleton services operated during lockdown. Thus, suspending the special services on the grounds of poor patronage was unacceptable.
It was an open secret that the main line had fallen outside the scope of development for a considerable period of time in the past following ‘realisation of the advantages’ in operating long distance trains through chord line by officials.
Hence, main line commuters falling between Villupuram and Tiruchi via. Chidambaram, Mayiladuthurai, Kumbakonam and Thanjavur viewed the reason cited by Southern Railway for suspension of 24 sets of special services from June 16/June17 to June 30/July 01 as nothing but inductive reasoning.
Further, the move had come at a time when a plea to introduce new services to Chennai Egmore from Manamadurai/Karaikudi via Tiruvarur on the newly laid track was being raised from commuters hailing from Peravurani, Pattukottai and Adhiramapattinam.
