Guruvayur passenger hit by bogie crisis again

KOCHI: Three days after the Kerala high court asked the railways to explore possibilities of adding extra bogies to the passenger train on the Guruvayur-Ernakulam stretch, the railways on Monday did exactly the opposite - they removed two bogies, resulting in massive overcrowding.
The Guruvayur-Ernakulam passenger that usually operates with 14 general compartments conducted the services on Monday with 12 bogies owing to the shortage of coaches.Following this, the train was overcrowded and commuters, especially students, were forced to travel hanging from doors and putting their lives at risk.
"The Guruvayur-Ernakulam passenger witnesses peak load every day, particularly on Monday. Even after repeated requests to increase bogies, railways authorities have always reduced the number of bogies for reasons only known to them," said Thrissur railway passengers' association general secretary P Krishnakumar. The association has been demanding an increase in the number of bogies from 12 to 18.
Sources from the railways admit that while the normal capacity of a passenger compartment is 72, each bogie of the Guruvayur-Ernakulam passenger carries at least 300 passengers on any given day.
"The same train operates between Alappuzha and Ernakulam before it starts the next service. Two days ago, two bogies of the train had to be removed for repairs at Alappuzha and there were no bogies available for replacement that caused the Monday's overcrowding. We are looking into possibilities of adding three to four extra coaches to the train and high-level discussions are on. However, nothing has materialised so far," said a railway officer.
Another senior officer with the Thiruvananthapuram railway division said that severe coach shortage has started to affect daily passenger rail services in the division, the largest coach handling division in the country.