Cyclone damages railway tracks; train services hampered

Heavy rains in the aftermath of cyclone Hudhud caused damage to tracks at a few locations in Vijayawada Division of South Central Railway (SCR).
According to the SCR, a few locations between Elamanchili- Narsingapalli-Bayyavaram Stations on Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam rail route under the division faced problems due to ruptured tracks.
Following the damage, the SCR has taken up track restoration activities on a war-footing.
"As part of the action plan to face the situation arising out of cyclonic weather conditions, we had kept engineering material trains loaded with relief/restoration materials in close proximity at strategic locations on the affected route in advance," the SCR said.

As many as nine special material trains, consisting of 174 wagons loaded with sand bags in 63 wagons; boulders in 92 wagons; quarry dust in 11 wagons, girders in four wagons and cribs in four wagons, were mobilised from Vijayawada and the adjoining Secunderabad, Guntur and Guntakal Divisions well in time to the breached spots.
To speed up the restoration activities, a team of Principal Heads of Departments led by SCR General Manager P K Srivastava proceeded to Elamanchili by a special train from Secunderabad today.

In view of the breaches, the train services to and from Visakhapatnam got affected today and are likely to be restored tomorrow.

However, long distance express trains towards Howrah are being operated on diverted route via Vijayawada-Kazipet- Balharshah-Nagpur-Jharsiguda-Kharagpur.
Except for the Section from Samalkot to Visakhapatnam, train services have been running on all other routes on SCR.
A special train from Hyderabad (departure time 05:15pm) to Kakinada is provided with stoppages at stations as per the schedule of Godavari Express. Another special train from Tirupati (departure Time 08:50pm) to Tuni is provided with stoppages at stations as per the schedule of Tirumala Express, SCR said.
"These two special trains are aimed at clearing the stranded passengers, if any, at enroute stations to destinations situated up to Tuni in Visakhapatnam route," it said.