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Rail won't ease Eid rush much

Capacity slightly increased

M Abul Kalam Azad
Tens of thousands of people wishing to go home for the Eid holidays by train will have to face the same old difficulties for tickets.
It is the same old reason - the passenger-carrying capacity of Bangladesh Railway remained unchanged against a steady rise in the demand for rail communications.
Ahead of Eid, around one lakh people will be able to travel on 43 trains - 29 intercity trains and 14 mail trains -that operate daily from Dhaka to different districts. Last year, 42 trains were in service.
Railway officials expect some 10,000 to 12,000 people will travel standing inside the coaches and on the roof of trains, mostly without tickets.
The railway authorities will introduce three special intercity trains that will operate on Dhaka-Dewanganj-Dhaka, Dhaka-Parbatipur-Dhaka and Dhaka-Khulna-Dhaka routes on July 26,27 and 28. They were used last year as well.
However, these special trains will do little good to ease the sufferings of the passengers as they fall considerably short of huge requirement ahead of Eid.
Usually, the authorities put back into service old carriages and even freight wagons to increase the capacity of trains in service during the holiday season, said a railway official seeking anonymity.
Meanwhile, the railway has yet to recover some of the trains it lost during the countrywide violence inflicted by the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir late last year.
Most of the damaged coaches were repaired and are already being used. But none of the six coaches that were torched in Dhaka and Rajshahi have been repaired.The number of trains leaving Chittagong for Dhaka, Feni and Sylhet did not increase. Currently, a total of 14 trains, including seven intercity, run on these routes. Two special trains will run between Chittagong and Feni for three days before Eid day, our Chittagong office reported.
However, this year the authorities will keep trains on standby at Kamalapur Railway Station in case of delays in the arrival of trains.
The authorities will also try not to allow passengers to get on board trains from Joydevpur or Airport stations since a large number of people, mostly
without tickets, occupy the compartments beforehand from these two stations instead of going to Kamalapur.
As a result, passengers waiting at the Kamalapur Railway Station often find it difficult to get on board even with tickets.
All trains arriving at Kamalapur will be vacated first and then the ticket holders will be allowed to get on board, an official at the Kamalapur Railways Station said.
No freight trains will run in the country from three days prior to Eid, apart from those carrying food and fuel, the official added.