Trains are operated from Egmore railway station with no water supply
Posted on: 23/Jul/2018 9:52:42 AM
Many trains start from the Egmore railway station in Chennai city is well known. The news that has emerged out now is as many as 11 trains that included daily express trains or weekly express trains are being operated without water or with insufficient water for the last 10 days. This Egmore railway station depends on the private tankers for water supply. The water supply to the trains in Egmore railway station has been affected due to Chennai traffic police decision to ban the entry of water tanker lorries between 8 am in the morning and noon.
In the last week a resident belonging to Tambaram, Chennai travelled by Kanyakumari-Hazrat Nizamuddin Thirukkural Express and found her journey to be very difficult. She spoke about how there was no water on the train between the stations Gudur and Vijayawada. It usually takes around 7 hours to reach Vijayawada from Egmore station and due to lack of water plus due to bad smell she could not use the toilet facility in the train. Enough water could not be supplied due to water scarcity and this was confirmed by the onboard railway staffs.
There were also similar issues in other trains like Vaigai Express,Pallavan Express, Bhubaneswar-Rameswaram Weekly Express, Rameswaram-Manduadih Weekly Express etc. A total of 33 trains start from Egmore railway station and out of those 11 trains leave between 8 am and 1pm.
Some trains such as Vaigai Express, Pallavan Express, Kanyakumari-Hazrat Nizamuddin Thirukkural Express etc were supplied water from the station. Water from maintenance yard was provided to other trains. Every day 10 litres of water is needed by this famous Egmore station and private tanker lorry companies provide water. It is worthy to mention that this Egmore station supplies as much as 20,000 litres of water per train.
An official from railways expressed his concern and spoke about how water demand through ground water would not be met and how water got from tanker lorry is provided to Pallavan Express and Vaigai Expresses. He then highlighted that due to the lack of adequate water supply, water could not be provided to weekly trains.
Factors like failure of motors at water companies, vehicle failure, traffic etc were responsible for water supply to the Egmore station getting delayed. The official later explained about how water companies function up to 8 pm and how it is not possible for the lorries to supply water before 8 am. He finally spoke about how around the clock lorries that supply water to the railways must be allowed as it would superb. Chennai city based senior police official spoke about how this issue would be sorted out if the railways approached them with lorry numbers that are exempted from the peak hour restriction.
