NEW DELHI: Passengers are paying the price for decades of neglect of the railways with most trains running late and the situation threatening to worsen once the winter fog sets in.The state-run transporter's renewed priority on safety and repair works has hit train operations badly with punctuality dipping to around 65% on Tuesday as against 77% last year on the same day. From April to November 20 in the current financial year, punctuality was recorded at 76.3%, which was around 4% lower compared with the same period in the last financial year.To ensure faster completion of track repair and renewal works, railways has increased speed restrictions from 2,004 blocks to around 4,800 blocks, which is an increase from 3,000 hours per day given for repair works across the country to 5,000 hours per day. However, there is a silver lining. The transporter saw a surge in passenger traffic in the first eight months of this fiscal year.The transporter has witnessed a reversal of trend, after losing passengers to other modes of transport for three consecutive fiscal years since 2013-14. Another official said that the encouraging trend may be because railways has not increased passenger fares while there were was a spike in airfares.

Source: Times of India December 01, 2017 22:52 UTC