Prasanthi Express extended to Bhubaneswar

Visakhapatnam, Feb 9 (UNI) The East Coast Railway (ECR) today announced extension of the Visakhapatnam-Bangalore-Visakhapatnam Prasanthi Express upto Bhubaneswar from February 20.

According to an ECR release here, the Prasanti Express, with 21 coaches instead of 18 now, would leave Bhubaneswar daily at 0415 hrs and reach Bangalore at 1000 hrs the next day. In the return direction, it would leave Bangalore at 1400 hrs and reach Bhubaneswar at 2055 hrs the next day.

With this extension, passengers of the north coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh would lose one more train to Bhubaneswar. This is the second train to be extended there after Visakhapatnam-Secunderabad Visakha Express, last year.

As plans are afoot to extend more trains to Bhubaneswar, various citizens' forums here are planning to intensify their struggle for forming either a separate Railway Zone with Visakhapatnam as headquarters or merger of the Waltair Division with South Central Railway (SCR) instead of the existing ECR.

The ECR would run a special train between Bhubaneswar and Chennai Egmore on February 12 to clear the extra rush of passengers. The train would leave Bhubaneswar at 2200 hrs on February 12 and reach Egmore-Chennai at 2000 hrs, the next day.

UNI