ranchi

Updated: Jun 13, 2017 12:46 IST

Thirteen mail and express trains along with six passenger trains will remain cancelled and seven trains will be diverted through two different routes from Wednesday midnight (June 15), as the ministry of railways has decided to close traffic on Dhanbad-Chandrapura section due to underground fire of the Jharia coalfield.

The decision was taken two days back acting on advisory received from the ministry of coal in view of passengers’ safety, said railway board (member traffic) Mohd Jamshed on Monday. He said, “Special counters will be opened for refunds as per rules and efforts will be made to minimize passengers’ inconvenience.”

The trains that have been cancelled are: 13403/04 (Ranchi-Bhagalpur) Vananchal express, 18605/06 Ranchi-Jaynagar tri-weekly express, 18627/28 Ranchi-Howrah intercity express, 12831/32 (Dhanbad-Bhubaneswar) Garib Rath tri-weekly express, 18603/04 Ranchi-Bhagalpur tri-weekly express, 15661/62 Ranchi-Kamakhya bi-weekly express, 17007/08 Darbhanga-Secunderabad bi-weekly express, 18629/30 Ranchi-New Jalpaiguri weekly express, 17005/06 Hyderabad-Raxaul weekly express, 13025/26 Bhopal-Howrah weekly express, 19413/14 Kolkata-Ahmedabad weekly express, 19607/08 Kolkata-Ajmer weekly express and 13425/26 Surat-Maldah weekly express besides Muri-Dhanbad passenger, Chandrapura-Bhojudih passenger, Bokaro steel city-Howrah passenger via Chandrapura, Hatia-Dhanbad passenger, Chandrapura-Dhanbad passenger, Jhargram-Dhanbad passenger trains.

The seven trains that have been diverted are: 12019/12020 Howrah-Ranchi Shatabdi express (diverted via Dhanbad-Gomoh-Chandrapura), 15028/27 Maurya express (diverted via Dhanbad-Gomoh-Chandrapura), 13351/52 Dhanbad Allepey express (diverted via Gomoh), 1148/47 Shaktipunj express (diverted via Gomoh), 18621/22 Patliputra express (diverted via Chittaranjan-Asansol-Jaichandipahar-Bhojudih-Talgharia-Bokaro), 18620/19 Dumka-Ranchi intercity express (diverted via Chittaranjan-Asansol-Jaichandipahar-Bhojudih-Talgharia-Bokaro) and 13303/04 Dhanbad-Ranchi intercity express (diverted via Chittaranjan-Asansol-Jaichandipahar-Bhojudih-Talgharia-Bokaro).

The underground fire in the coal seams had been razing for the past several decades, affecting the railway tracks, laid long back during the British era to connect Katras with Kolkata and extended beyond the coal belt with the rise in population along the railway lines and endangering lives.

Several rounds of talks between the ministry of coal and railways were held in the past to look into the possibilities of diversion. However, a decision could not be taken in view of the huge cost involved in diverting the railway tracks by laying a new one.

The present government appears keen on investing for new tracks diverting it from the underground mine fire zone.

Briefing media persons Dhanbad DRM MK Akhouri said, “The railways board has decided to close operations of the trains crossing via Dhanbad- Chandrapur railway section and we have signaled cancellation of 20 pairs of goods trains in addition.”

He said the diversion of tracks and related work on a parallel line via Dhanbad-Kusunda-Matari-Telo- Chandrapura will be taken up as advised by RITES in its report handed over to government in 2015.