Downpour, floods hit train, bus services

Tirupati: In view of the heavy water logging at several areas in and around Chittoor district, transport services were disrupted on Friday. Some train services may not be restored in the next few days due to the severe damage of the railway track between Nandalur and Rajampet in Kadapa district.

With the disruption of train and bus services, several visiting pilgrims were stranded in Tirupati and have been facing hardships. South Central Railway (SCR) has cancelled or diverted various trains due to the havoc created by the heavy rains.

Train No 17487 Kadapa–Visakhapatnam, Tirumala express has been diverted via Gooty, Dhone, Nandyal, Guntur and Vijayawada as it could not come to Tirupati on Friday. From Saturday onwards, the same train will run between Tirupati and Visakhapatnam only till the track is restored between Nandalur and Rajampet where about one km of track has breached.

Rayalaseema and Venkatadri expresses will run via Gooty, Dharmavaram and Pakala and will not run via Tirupati. Some other trains like Tirupati–Nizamabad, Kharagpur–Villupuram, etc., also were diverted through alternate routes whereas Chennai Central – Mumbai CSMT via Renigunta and Tirupati–Chennai Saptagiri express were cancelled.

It may be operated from Tirupati via Katpadi route from Saturday. Apart from the track between Nandalur-Rajampet, another track between Renigunta and Chennai near Pudi was also damaged affecting the normal movement of trains. Some other services also were either cancelled or partially diverted. SCR general manager Gajanan Mallya will be reaching Nandalur to inspect the track restoration work there.

In all, by Friday evening, SCR had diverted 14 trains and cancelled 15 trains. It has partially cancelled another four trains while one train was rescheduled.

Out of 1,291 APSRTC bus services, Tirupati region could not operate about 400 services. From Tirupati depot itself only 64 out of 103 bus services have been operated as many buses in rural routes were cancelled.

RTC regional manager T Chengal Reddy told The Hans India that keeping in view of the heavy water logging on roads, the bus services were being operated on the instructions of police and revenue officials.

Following the guidelines of TTD, Tirupati–Tirumala services were being plied from time to time. Water logging problems were there at Anjaneyapuram in Kadapa route, Koduru-Kadapa section, at Nendragunta on Tirupati–Chittoor route, etc., where the buses will be plied keeping in view the water level.

The services in Tirupati–Palliapattu via Pachikapallam, Tirupati–Talakona, Pileru–Madanapalli routes were cancelled due to road blockages. He said that they have been taking stock of the situation in every route before operating the services.

However, no flight services were disrupted on Friday as the downpour was stopped. Without any interruptions, all services were operating normally, said the airport director S Suresh.