Railway stations, bus stands witness huge crowd

With schools in the state re-opening on Monday after the summer holidays, people thronged the railway stations and the bus stands in the last two days to return back to their destinations.

Travellers thronged the Salem Railway Junction and the town railway station in the city since Saturday. With all scheduled trains and buses fully booked, anxious travellers seeking to return back their homes in time thronged the new bus stand in the city and the bus stands in other major towns such as Attur, Edappadi, Vazhappadi etc.

The regular trains from and via Salem such as Chennai Egmore Express, Yercaud Express, Cheran Express, Nilgris Express, Mangalore West Coast Express were running to their capacity.

The Railways has introduced summer special trains in different routes and all of them are overcrowded. The unreserved compartments are so jam packed.

The special trains such as Yesvantpur – Rameshwaram (weekly once) will be stopped from the first week of June. The people have urged the Railways to continue this train which enjoyed good patronage.

This train should be made into a regular train, says S. Kathiresan, a consumer activist.

The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation and the State Express Transport Corporation have pressed additional buses into services to meet the summer crowd. All the buses heading towards Chennai and Bengaluru are over-flowing since Sunday morning.