Power crisis 'jams' rail traffic on Kanpur-Delhi route

Aligarh/Lucknow, Mar 7 (UNI) Rail traffic on the busy Howrah-Delhi route today came to a stndstill for over seven hours early this morning due to tripping of power lines at power grid and the UPPCL.

About 40 important trains including Rajdhani Express and the Shatabdi Express were stranded causing problems for the passengers.

The same route had witnessed distruption yesterday also due to derailment of 15 wagons of a goods train.

Railway officials here said most of the trains were standing at different stations between Tundla and Delhi. The situation even turned worse when the members of Bharat Kisan Union (BKU) staged a dhrna on the track at Khurja station, officials said.

A report from Aligarh said after tripping of the transmission lines, the railway engineers detected fault in the overhead power supply system which lead to the critical situation.

'' Though we had made alternative arrangment to supply power to the overhead lines of the railways but the distruption of 7 hour long power created a jam on the tracks due to overloading of the trains on their ways to New Delhi'', railway sources said.

Aligarh railway station superintendent J D Singh admitted that the situation was very bad at least two trains had been detained in all the stations between Aligarh and Ghaziabad.

'' It will further take more than three hours to clear the rush'', he added.

A UP Power Corporation Limited(UPPCL) official told UNI the transmission lines of the Power Grid Corporation and of the UPPCL tripped in the early hours leading to a major power crisis, mostly in the western parts of UP.

''Dense fog in the region has been stated to be the reason for the tripping of the power lines,'' the official said.

The power unit of Harduaganj at Aligarh tripped after the problem which led to major disruption of railway traffic. After the tripping of the Harduaganj unit, the transmission lines of power grid and UPPCL also tripped leading to disruption of power supply to the railways.

''Most of the transmission lines have been rectified and normal power supply particularly to the railways have been restored at 1300 hrs,'' sources claimed.

Meanwhile reports from Allahabad and Kanpur, headquarters of the North-central railway, said the movement of more than 3 dozen passenger trains had been affected due to the power crisis.

Several Rajdhani Express trains along with Kalka Mail, Poorwa Express and others, all bound for Delhi were stranded at different stations.

UNI MB/SB GT HT1520