Special train passengers stranded at stations

New Delhi: Scores of people, who arrived here on the first batch of trains since the partial resumption of railway services amid a lockdown, were on Wednesday left stranded on the roads outside the railway station with no transport available for onward journeys. Special trains from Ahmedabad, Patna and Mumbai reached the New Delhi Railway Station before 9 am on Wednesday.

The Indian Railways resumed passenger train operations from May 12, initially with 15 pairs of trains, weeks after these were suspended due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Railway authorities said all passengers were compulsorily screened and given hand sanitisers at entry and exit points and in trains.

Though the train journey remained smooth for most of the passengers, their excitement to reach home disappeared as they stepped out of the station premises.

There was no bus, cab or any other transport option available for onward journeys. Many passengers carrying heavy luggage stood clueless outside the railway station, while some tried to convince local cab drivers to take them home in various states.

"We can give you Rs 6,000 maximum if you take us to Roorkee (a distance of about 200 km)," a man said to a driver who reached the station to pick up a family which had already booked his taxi. Another man was seen asking a rickshaw-puller to take to take him to Anand Vihar.

Vishnu, 24, who boarded a train from Sabarmati along with his wife and three-year-old boy, said he gave Rs 1,800 to a tempo driver to reach the Ahmedabad station. "My brother-in-law booked the ticket for us for Rs 1,750. We have to go to Ravi Nagar in West Delhi, but the family doesn't have a vehicle at home,"