Chennai: Southern Railway and Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) have brought relief to the people as the bus strike continued on Saturday. While railways made special arrangements to handle the additional passengers, metro rail witnessed a footfall of 31,600 upto 10 pm on Saturday.
The Southern Railway cancelled proposed line blocks for maintenance of assets in Chennai Suburban Railway Network system that also involved cancellation of suburban trains on Saturday and Sunday.
“The maintenance work on railway blocks was supposed to be done on Saturday and Sunday expecting fewer crowd, but in view of the bus strike normal suburban services operated on all lines including in MMC -Arakkonam, MMC- Gummidipundi- Sullurupetta, MRTS, and Chennai Beach-Tambaram-Chengalpattu on Saturday,” said a senior railway official.
With cab aggregators and autos charging sky high fares, commuters we- re dependent on railways, especially in North Chennai as no other mode of transport was available.
“I regularly travel from Avadi to Tambaram by bus, and cab charges are more than Rs 500. I can’t afford to pay such high fares being a regular commuter, a train was the only option available,” said S. Shalini, a resident of Avadi.
Chennai Division handled 1.92 lakhs additional passengers on Friday and the numbers are expected to be the same even on Saturday. Railways recorded an increase of 13.69 lakhs on Thursday and Friday as on the same days of last year,” he said.
Taking a step ahead, railways decided to operate weekday services even on weekend. “Ladies special trains will also be operated as the general service,” said a railway official.
Being a weekend office goers and student passengers were less in metro rail than Friday when the total footfall recorded was 32,750.
“Though metro rail compartments were jam-packed on Friday, the crowd was relaxed on Saturday. However, if the transport workers continue the strike till Monday, trains are going to be overcrowded as we do not have other affordable alternatives,’ said Jairam Krishnan, a regular Metro commuter.
