Passenger train services to resume in Northeast states on July 22

Guwahati, July 17 (IANS): After around 70 days, the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), following the restoration of the damaged railway tracks, will resume passenger train services in the Lumding-Badarpur section in Assam on July 22 to connect Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and the southern part of Assam with the rest of the country, officials said on Sunday.

NFR’s Chief Public Relations Officer, Sabyasachi De said that freight train services were started on July 12 in the Lumding-Badarpur section via Dima Hasao mountainous district, which is the only rail route to connect Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and the southern Assam with the other parts of the country.

In the hill section under Lumding Division both passenger and freight train services were cancelled due to the heavy rains and unprecedented landslides on May 14.

“Railway officials, engineers, workers worked day and night to bring back the national transporter on track in these affected areas so that scarcity of essential items in states like Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram and Barak Valley (southern Assam) areas could be avoided,” the CPRO said.

Due to unprecedented landslides triggered by heavy rain since May 13, massive damage has been caused to stations and railway tracks at over 61 locations in NFR’s Lumding-Badarpur single line railway route.

In many places, due to heavy rain, the soil from the railway tracks got washed away and huge landslides covered the tracks and other railway assets.

Even in such bad weather, thousands of workers and hundreds of machines worked day and night in these areas under the supervision of top Railway officials.

In view of the snapping of the railway services, Tripura and Mizoram had earlier approached the External Affairs Ministry to bring essential supplies and transport fuels via Bangladesh.