THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Southern Railway’s lackadaisical approach in adding adequate general compartments during special occasions and weekends irks travellers and cancer patients who visit city’s Regional Cancer Centre.
The travellers had protested recently and delayed the Malabar Express at Thiruvananthapuram Central station on a crowded Friday evening before Onam as it came with just two general compartments instead of normal three.
“It is a common knowledge that there will be too many people on days preceding public holidays. On that Friday, a full coach was given for women and another was given for RMS. RPF shooed away people who tried to board rear coaches,” said a season ticket holder.
Travellers say this is not a rarity and there was no additional rakes in express trains that came to the city on Monday after Onam holidays.
“Season ticket holders also are caught in a fuzz sometimes because trains like Maveli does not have de-reserved coaches which can be accessed with sleeper tickets or season tickets. Also, large numbers of cancer patients coming from Malabar are not often qualified to travel in disabled coaches,” another commuter named Gireesh said.
The railway officials who insisted anonymity accepted that scarcity of coach sets as a problem sometimes, but the sort of demand on weekends cannot be matched even if any numbers of general coaches are provided.
