Railways red faced as UP-bound train reaches Odisha

New Delhi : The Indian Railways was left red faced on Saturday after a Shramik Special train which started its journey from Mumbai for Gorakhpur on May 21 reached Odisha's Rourkela without intimating the passengers about the change in the route.

The plight of the people on board the train came to the fore after the passengers shared their video on Twitter.A senior Railway Ministry official in Delhi said, "We have decided to run few of the shramik trains on diverted routes.

Some trainsare diverted for Bihar via Rourkela to clear congestion," the official said. It is for the first time in the history of railway operations in India that the route of a moving train was changed without informing the passengers.

A passenger in the Shramik Special took to Twitter and wrote, "We have boarded the Shramik Special train on May 21 to go backto Gorakhpur.

However, despite 23 hours of journey we are still in Maharashtra.We don't have anything to eat and there is no water in the train. And why thetrain is going towards Nagpur from Bhusawal."

Another passenger in the video message said, "Now the train has been stopped in Odisha and people are saying that the driver has losthis way." Speaking about the confusion, a senior railway ministry official said: "There must have some operational compulsion of these diversions.

The Railways has been operationalising things at a time whenconditions are really challenging. Movement and converging of hundreds of trains in direction of one or two states from all kinds of train routes is acomplex exercise.

It has never happened before in the country like this. We are managing."