Jamshedpur, Jan. 14: The long wait of the passengers for a direct train superfast train to Pune got over with the commercial stoppage of Howrah-Pune Duronto at Tatanagar from Thursday.
According to information, a total of 74 passengers boarded the train from Tatanagar on the first day of its commercial stoppage today. While 55 passengers travelled on 3rd A.C, 17 boarded the 2nd AC coach and two passengers travelled on 1st AC. The 17-coach train includes 10 third ACs, three 2nd ACs, one first AC coach, two luggage vans and a pantry car.
The train arrived on platform No.1 at 11.55 a.m., after a delay of 20 minutes, from its actual arrival time. And after a 10 minutes halt left for its onward journey.
BJP MP from Jamshedpur Bidyut Baran Mahto, who played key role for ensuring commercial stop of the train at Tatanagar along with local legislator and state food and civil supplies minister Saryu Roy and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Balmuchu, greeted the passengers on the occasion.
They also completed the formality of flagging-off the train from Tatanagar railway station. Railway officials of Chakradharpur division were also present on the occasion.
“We are really happy to see the commercial stoppage of Duranto from Tatanagar. We campaigned for it and spoke to railway authorities including the Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu for providing commercial stop of the train at Tatanagar.
Many passengers, especially students, would be much benefitted,” said Mahto. Roy and Balmuchu also hailed the Railways� decision.
Notably, both the Up and Down trains will stop for 10 minutes each at the Tatanagar junction, allowing passengers adequate time to get off or board the train.
The Up train will run on Thursday and Saturday. The scheduled arrival of the train at Tatanagar is 11.35 a.m. and leave at 11.45 a.m. The Down train will reach Tatanagar on Sunday and Tuesday at 3.50 p.m. and will leave for Howrah at 4 p.m.
Notably, several MPs of different parties have been demanding that Duronto trains must have commercial stoppages in between two connecting cities. They wanted the trains to stop at a station in their constituencies.
Located on the Howrah-Mumbai main route Tatanagar is an important station. Several important trains travel via Tatanagar, including the high-profile Rajdhani Express and Duronto Express.
The station sees a daily traffic of 90 mail, express and passenger trains, besides a footfall of more than 60,000 passengers.