After a week-long suspension of trains on long distance routes following damage of tracks due to torrential rain, the movement of passenger trains from Agartala resumed on July 20.
Agartala – Bangaluru Humsafar express and Agartala – Sealdah Kanchenjunga express have started early in the morning on July 20 from Agartala as per schedule and Agartala – Deoghar express is scheduled to leave in the evening. The scheduled departure of Habibganj Express has been cancelled from Tripura, as it could not reach Agartala last week due to flood. It is scheduled to start from Guwahati on July 21.
Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) officials stated that due to continuous heavy rainfall railway track of about 5 km stretch between Jhatinga and New Haringajhau of North Cachar hills has been washed away and landslide in some locations badly damaged the railway track on July 11 last. As a result, train service between Lumding and Badarpur section has been suspended from next day.
However, train service in Agartala – Silchar section was uninterrupted along with the service within the state. More than 6800 passengers of different trains have cancelled their journey due to suspension of train service from Agartala to Guwahati, New Jalpaiguri, Kolkata, Deoghar, Habibganj, Bhubaneswar, Bangaluru and New Delhi in last eight days that shot up the air fare in Kolkata route up to Rs 15,000.
The disruption of railway service in hill section has also affected the supply chain of essential commodities in Tripura, South Assam and Mizoram. However, NFR had mobilised more than 700 workers together in restoration of railway track and bring the service in order and yesterday the trial run of goods train were made successfully.
