BENGALURU: After an hour’s block was announced on railway tracks to carry out maintenance work along the Bengaluru-Dharmavaram section, the blockage was extended by an additional two hours, upsetting train schedules along the route.
The line block was scheduled between Hindupur and Malagur between 2.35 pm and 3.35 pm, said a highly placed official. “As the work needed to be completed, the block was extended until 5.32 pm. The sudden unscheduled extension is called a block burst in railway terminology,” he said.
The extension of the block burst by 117 minutes resulted in several trains being halted at a few stations, he said. The Prashanthi Express (Bengluru to Bhubaneshwar) halted at Hindupur railway station for 103 minutes while the Jaipur Express from Mysuru to Jaipur was halted for 142 minutes. The Kondaveedu Express from Yeswanthpur to Machilipatnam halted in Devarapalli for 60 minutes while the Kacheguda Express suffered a 10-minute delay at Gauribidanur Station.
A senior railway official said passengers on board the train to Machilipatnam grew irate and demanded answers from the railway staff after they were stranded for an hour at Devarapalli Station.
Divisional Railway Manager of Bangalore Railway Division, A K Varma, said a block burst was in effect on Saturday afternoon.
Explaining the reasons for the delay, a top official said for the first time, the sophisticated 3X machine, which could carry out packing (compressing jelly stones together) on the pre-stressed concrete, was being deployed in South Western Railway. Periodic maintenance work needs to be carried out compulsorily once or twice a year in order to ensure that trains run safely, he said.