Reme two express trains, demand passengers

Assam Rail Passengers’ Association has demanded christening of the Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express and the Amritsar-Dibrugarh Express as the ‘Tea City Express’ and the ‘Swar Mandir Express' respectively

STAFF CORRESPONDENT

DIBRUGARH, October 2: The Dibrugarh district committee of the Assam Rail Passengers’ Association has demanded christening of the Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express and the Amritsar-Dibrugarh Express as the ‘Tea City Express’ and the ‘Swar Mandir Express’ respectively.

Office bearers of the committee headed by its president Ramen Sengupta, met the Tinsukia based Divisiol Railway Mager at his office and discussed various issues relating to the betterment of the railway services in the district in particular and also the eastern part of Assam in general. During their meeting with the Divisiol Railway Mager, the committee submitted two memoranda to the latter.

In the first memorandum, the committee raised the issue of christening of the trains. The memorandum said that in order to highlight Dibrugarh’s heritage as the largest tea producing region in the country and hence justifying the  Tea City of India  and also at the same time, the spiritual heritage of India represented by the holy  Swar Mandir, that is, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, christening of the said trains were felt necessary. It may be mentioned here that, trains in India are normally med highlighting cultural, geographical or other importance of a particular place connected by the respective trains or the type of the train itself as suggested by the mes such as the Brahmaputra Mail, Kamrup Express, Himsagar Express, Sampark Kranti Express, Duronto Express and others

In the second memorandum, the committee has urged the Divisiol Railway Mager to take steps to introduce sub-urban services in Dibrugarh by running more trains from the historic Dibrugarh Town station and also to extend the Dangari-Tinsukia passenger train upto Dibrugarh Town besides introduction of the third pair of passenger trains between Ledo and Dibrugarh which existed in the meter-gauge era of rail operations in this part of the country.

The memorandum also requested the NF Railway authorities to revise the timings of the existing passenger trains plying between Ledo and Dibrugarh town to best suit the interests of the passengers.

The DRM reportedly gave a patient hearing to the office bearers of the committee who met him and informed that the NF Railway authorities have taken steps for introduction of DEMU (Diesel Electrical Multiple Unit) services in Tinsukia Division in February next. ‘With the introduction of DEMU services, the passenger train services in the division will improve much besides helping the NR Railway to recover some portion of the loss it has been incurring from passenger train services. ’, said the DRM.

It may be mentioned that the Assam Rail Passengers’ Association has been demanding introduction of sub-urban train services in Guwahati and Dibrugarh in Assam since 2006.

As the DEMU train has engines on both sides, reversing of engine at the origiting and termiting stations is not necessitated and at the same time the operation cost of such trains is much less in comparison to the conventiol trains.

Ramen Sengupta, the president of the Dibrugarh district committee of the Assam Rail Passengers’ Association has urged both the state government and the NF Railway authorities to immediately repair the badly damaged road to the Dibrugarh (Banipur) station.