South Eastern Railway is planning to undertake a mega work of replacement of 116 years old early steel girders (3 Nos. of 150 feet each)of Bridge No.215 in Jaleswar-Amarda Road block section of Kharagpur-Bhadrak section in Kharagpur Division.
It is planned to start the first block of 58 hours from 05.00 AM of 25.5.2012(Friday) to 03.00 PM of 27.5.2012(Sunday).Three such blocks are planned at an interval of 7 days.
During the block period, the following Mail/Express trains shall remain cancelled:
i)12278/12277 Puri-Howrah-Puri Duronto Express from 25.5.12 to 27.5.12.
ii)12074/12073 Bhubaneswar-Howrah-Bhubaneswar Jan Shatabadi Express from 25.5.12 to 26.5.12.
iii)22874 Visakhapatnam-Digha Weekly Express on 24.5.12 and 22873 Digha-Visakhapatnam Weekly Express on 25.5.12.
iv)12896 Puri-Howrah Weekly Express on 24.5.12 and 12895 Howrah-Puri Weekly Express on 25.5.12.
v)12571 Howrah-Sri Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam –Howrah Weekly Express on 23.5.12 and 12572 Sri Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam Weekly Express on 25.5.12.
vi)22849 Shalimar-Secunderabad Weekly Express on 25.5.12 and 22850 Secunderabad-Shalimar Weekly Express on 27.05.12.
vii)18007/18008 Shalimar-Baripada-Shalimar Express on 27.5.12.
Most of these Mail/Express train planned to be cancelled are weekly trains as their occupancy is very low.
Two Mail/Express trains viz. Train No. 12802/12801 New Delhi-Puri-New Delhi Purushottam Express and 18478/18477 Haridwar-Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express are planned to be divertred via Jaroli and Angul respectively.Other trains diverted are:-
i)16310 Patna-Ernakulam Bi-weekly express
ii)12508 Guwahati-Ernakulam Weekly Express
iii)12754 New Jalpaiguri-Chennai Central Weekly Express
iv)15630 Guwahati-Chennai-Egmore Weekly Express
v)15902 Dibrugarh-Yesvantpur Weekly Express
vi)12509 Bangalore-Guwahati Tri-weekly Express
vii)15227 Yesvantpur-Muzaffarpur Weekly Express
viii)15929 Chennai-Egmore Dibrugarh Weekly Express
ix)16323 Thiruvananthapuram-Shalimar Bi-weekly Express
The following Passenger Trains/MEMU trains will remain cancelled/short terminated:-
i)Train No.58005/58006 Kharagpur-Khurda Road-Kharagpur Passenger shall remain cancelled on 25.5.12 and 26.5.12.
ii)MEMU Train No.68021/68022 Kharagpur-Balasore-Kharagpur shall remain cancelled during the block period from 25.5.12 & 26.5.12.
iii)Train No.58010/58009 Jajpur Keonjhar Road –Kharagpur-Jajpur Keonjhar Road Passenger shall be short terminated at Balasore on 25.5.12 and 26.5.12.Thus, the train will remain cancelled between Balasore-Kharagpur-Balasore on 25.5.12 and 26.5.12.
12821/12822 Howrah-Puri-Howrah Dhauli Express and 18409/18410 Sri Jagannath Express will stop at all stations between Kharagpur and Balasore from 25.5.2012 to 27.5.2012.
The Caution Order of 20 kmph on this 116 years old Early Steel Bridge is on account of ageing of the bridge girders and its condition is not fit for increasing the speed of Mail/Express trains.An average 4 minutes is lost for every train due to speed restriction on this bridge for the last 2 ½ years.After replacement of girders, not only the speed of Mail/Express trains will be normalized from 20 kmph to 100 kmph over this bridge but this will also assure safe passage of trains in future over this bridge.
South Eastern Railway appeals to the passengers making journey on this section to bear upon the inconvenience caused to them on account of replacement of old steel girders in the interest of safety and improving speed of trains.