Train services resume in NE after wagon of goods train derailed in Assam tunnel

Guwahati/Agartala: Normal train services resumed on Sunday in Assam’s Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section after the regular train services remained disrupted since Thursday following the derailment of a loaded goods wagon, officials said.

Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Kapinjal Kishore Sharma said that after the repair of the railway track inside a tunnel near Mupa, trial runs with light engines and goods trains were conducted on Saturday to ensure 100 per cent safety.

After the derailment of a loaded goods wagon on Thursday afternoon (October 31), efforts were undertaken by the railway engineers, officials and workers to restore the movement of regular train service between Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram, southern Assam and the rest of the country via Guwahati,” he said.

“After ascertaining 100 per cent safety, regular passenger train movement began from Sunday morning,” the CPRO said.

Sharma said that the passenger and goods train services in the hill section had to be suspended since Thursday afternoon (October 31) due to the derailment of a loaded wagon of one goods train inside a tunnel.

According to Railway officials, more than a dozen trains continue to remain cancelled on the Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section till Saturday while some others are either partially cancelled or rescheduled.

A wagon of the Silchar-bound goods train carrying food grains from northern India derailed inside a tunnel near Mupa in the Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section of Southern Assam’s Dima Hasao district on Thursday afternoon.

Earlier, the normal train services were affected on October 17 and 18, when six coaches, an engine and the power car of Mumbai-bound Agartala-Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Express derailed on the same Lumding-Badarpur Hill section.

Notably, many Express, local and goods trains connecting Manipur, Southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram pass through the single track of the Lumding-Badarpur Hill section under the mountainous Dima Hasao district.

People of southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur bear the brunt of floods during monsoon every year while the railway tracks, stations and other infrastructure get damaged due to flooding and landslides during the four-month-long monsoon from June to September.