Frequency of electric train services down due to coronavirus: Company/Office-goers affected!
Posted on: 20/Mar/2020 3:03:43 PM
As a preventive measure against the coronavirus spread, the frequency of the suburban electric train services has been cut by 50%!
This has put the regular commuters who undertake the trip to their respective companies/office/workplaces to great hardship!
Normally, over 120 trains are operated every day as a suburban service on the routes Chennai Beach - Tambaram - Chengalpattu - Kanchipuram - Thirumalpur, and from Thirumalpur to Chennai Beach.
Similarly, over 100 passenger trains are operated from Chennai Moore Market to Tiruthani - Arakonam and to Washermanpet, Gummidipundi.
More than 80 trains are operated from Chennai Beach to Velacherry every day. As the train fare is reasonably low and it provides for faster, disturbance-free transport, all school/college students, and the office workers who are government employees or private company employees, over 50,000 passengers avail these train services.
In this scenario, the state government of Tamil Nadu has been undertaking various drastic measures for the prevention of the coronavirus spread. Accordingly, it has ordered that public gathering places such as theatres, commercial complexes, parks, etc., must be closed until 31st March. So, the public movement has reduced drastically.
With vacations declared for schools and colleges. The government offices and the private sector employers continue to function as usual. Hence, these employees are constrained to work as usual and need to reach their offices. As such, when they reach the railway station, a waiting time of up to half-an-hour is required to catch the trains! As such, there is a large crowd of passengers in the frequency-reduced trains!
Keeping in mind, the strict instruction to avoid large crowd gathering to prevent coronavirus infection, this scenario of crowded electric trains appears contradictory and unacceptable. As such, there is a fervent appeal from these regular train commuters to operate additional trains!
