[JS Kwt]

After Brother's Tweet, Railways Runs Delayed Train at Full Speed & Girl Reaches Exam Hall on Time !

Some heartening news


https://t.co/Ww4Mi5vuRn

Mau (Uttar Pradesh): The brother of a girl, whose exam was scheduled to be held at 12 noon but her train was delayed due to fog, tweeted to the Indian Railways that ran the train at full speed and she was able to take the exam.

After her brother's tweet, the North Eastern Railway on Wednesday made efforts to ensure that she did not miss her basic teacher certificate (BTC) DLED examination.

Nazia Tabassum, a resident of Mau, had her centre for the examination in Varanasi. Tabassum had a reservation in Chhapra-Varanasi Intercity Special (05111).

On the examination day, the train, which was supposed to reach Mau Junction at 6:25 am was running late by more than 2.5 hours due to fog.

As the train had not reached Mau even after 8 am, Tabassum informed her brother Anwar Jamal that the exam would be missed due to the delay in the train.

After this, Jamal tweeted to the Railways and informed that the examination would be missed if the train did not reach on time. The Railways took note of Jamal's tweet and ran the 2.5-hour delayed train at full speed to reach Varanasi by 11 am.

Speaking to ANI, Nazia Tabassum said, "My examination was from 12 noon at Vallabh Vidyapeeth Balika Inter College in Varanasi. The train in which I had a reservation was running more than 2.5 hours late. Then, I called my brother and he tweeted to the Railways for help."

Tabassum said after her brother's tweet, Railways called her and assured her that she would reach on time. Finally, she reached the examination centre in Varanasi 45 minutes before the examination was to begin.

Anwar Jamal, Tabassum's brother told ANI,
"I sought help from the Railways through a tweet. After 10 minutes, railway authorities made a call on my sister's phone and assured us that we would reach on time.
The train arrived at Mau at 9:18 am and reached Varanasi by 10:57 am."

Jamal thanked railways on Twitter after they reached the examination centre on time.

Amazing power of Social media
Well done Indian Railways Seva

Source

[paragsachania]

Small little things like these is always heartwarming to read in this era of opinion based debates and articles.

Enough said and Credit where it is due. If the tweet indeed was taken seriously, and the train made to run full blast to reach on time, it is extremely commendable because someone acknowledged the concern and acted upon it. Kudos to Indian Railways and Social media handle put to right use.

Best wishes for the girl's examination results!

[VKumar]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

extremely commendable because someone acknowledged the concern and acted upon it.

Had I been an IRTS officer, I would have probably ignored the tweet altogether.

Reason being, the BTC exam is given by a lot of candidates, now if we go by the fact that one candidate (In fact, many more in the same train) was traveling by an inter city express, there is a probability that multiple other people are also traveling from other local trains too (Data analysis dictates this rule). So, doesn't there stand a probability that a few others must have lost the chance because their trains, moving ahead of this one, were asked to stop to this give this one a pass, to assure that this train reaches on time?

Anyone with a thorough knowledge of how railways work, I request you to kindly shed some light on this.

My assumption is that, multiple trains on same as well as other routes also would have been carrying aspirants for the same exam, people do plan their journey accordingly. Varanasi is a big station, which has almost 300 trains passing through it every day, to make a time saving window of say 2 hours for a train, at least 8 must have suffered for sure (30% of the number passing in 2 hours). A train gets late because the ones moving ahead of it are also late for the same reason and the empty track isn't available. To speed up one, other ones are asked to take halt on the outside tracks of the stations en-route, those trains also were probably carrying the aspirants only, especially the ones which suffer the most - local trains.

IMO, very short sighted and bad decisions by some officials just to show that how actively they help the people - who approach them on twitter!

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by VKumar

IMO, very short sighted and bad decisions by some officials just to show that how actively they help the people - who approach them on twitter!

Good introspection .

I pity if there were a lot others who lost for only one that gained. But if that is the case, we will know soon because there are a lot of media houses waiting to post both sides of the story as always.

Till then, I will still consider this as a small little act that helped someone reach an examination center on time.

[Piyush19]

Originally Posted by VKumar

Had I been an IRTS officer, I would have probably ignored the tweet altogether.

Reason being, the BTC exam is given by a lot of candidates, now if we go by the fact that one candidate (In fact, many more in the same train) was traveling by an inter city express, there is a probability that multiple other people are also traveling from other local trains too (Data analysis dictates this rule). So, doesn't there stand a probability that a few others must have lost the chance because their trains, moving ahead of this one, were asked to stop to this give this one a pass, to assure that this train reaches on time?

Anyone with a thorough knowledge of how railways work, I request you to kindly shed some light on this.

My assumption is that, multiple trains on same as well as other routes also would have been carrying aspirants for the same exam, people do plan their journey accordingly. Varanasi is a big station, which has almost 300 trains passing through it every day, to make a time saving window of say 2 hours for a train, at least 8 must have suffered for sure (30% of the number passing in 2 hours). A train gets late because the ones moving ahead of it are also late for the same reason and the empty track isn't available. To speed up one, other ones are asked to take halt on the outside tracks of the stations en-route, those trains also were probably carrying the aspirants only, especially the ones which suffer the most - local trains.

IMO, very short sighted and bad decisions by some officials just to show that how actively they help the people - who approach them on twitter!

Quite a nice and detailed analysis of the situation and pretty much makes sense ideally. But I beg to differ with you for this case. Let us imagine ourselves in the shoes of the controller at the time of incident. We have a passenger train stopping at almost every station between Mau and Varanasi and we have to prioritize the arrival of the said train in Varanasi. That being said, this train stops at almost all the stations between Mau and Varanasi, so moving another train out of it's slot by stopping it at a station is out of question. And neither the halts be removed of the train for obvious reasons. So the only option is to minimise the halting time (since the train is already delayed, a 1 minute halt at small intermediate stations also won't raise eyebrows) and run the train at the Maximum Permissible Speed by not giving caution signals on the way.

Also, the distance between the said stations is 90 Kms. and the train on the day of incidence covered the distance in 1 Hr 39 Mints. making the average speed 54.5 Km/hr which is by no means any extra ordinary thing. So, I think it was a good decision by the controller which ensured the benefit of the said train as well as other trains on the route.
Thanks!

[Durango Dude]

For all the warm gestures wish Indian Railways shifts from it's typical 'Indian' punctuality to the 'Japanese' punctuality.

[mvadg]

This is the equivalent of a CMM Level 0 organization. One heroic deed saves the organization (?) this time. A damning indictment of that "organization" called the Indian Railways - they should be forced to get certified every month by some international agency, but knowing how this works in the software industry, I'm not holding my breath!

[jkrishnakj]

Originally Posted by VKumar

Had I been an IRTS officer, I would have probably ignored the tweet altogether. this one a pass, to assure that this train reaches on time?


IMO, very short sighted and bad decisions by some officials just to show that how actively they help the people - who approach them on twitter!

Nice analysis there.

Keep aside all the technicalities. The fact to appreciate is the ‘humanness’. I’m sure that the call she received assuring her that she’ll get her exam on time would have given her so much comfort. That call and an intent to help is what makes this heart warming.

[AMG Power]

While this may be a nice gesture, one cannot run a gargantuan organization such as the railways so that ONE lady arrives on time for an examination.

The sheer size and scale of the operations of the railways, makes such a move almost short sighted with complete disregard for the several others on other trains who may have had equally pressing engagements.

Nice gesture. Bad move.

[honeybee]

I am really surprised at the cynical tone in some of the posts. Without knowing all the facts, it seems that even a nice, human gesture must always be ridiculed by some cold logic, even if it were baseless or meritless.

If the same logic be applied, then damn the traffic corridors which are created to transport an organ to a waiting patient that saves his or her lives. No saar, you are just one individual and your life comes after we have discussed our rights of way, and delayed attendances and delayed lunches and suppers.

Come on, folks, give the railways a break!

[saisree]

Let the other stories of missing exams or something due to this act unfold, until then good job Railways.

If you want to get on time tweet don’t sit idle blaming your luck. I’m downloading Twitter now

[swissknife]

A question comes to my mind. If the train was delayed due to fog, was it safe to have the train travel at its fully rated speed or more to make up the lost time?

[Simhi]

Commendable job by the IR.

Out of curiosity, collected few statistics
http://www.totaltraininfo.com/train/05111/schedule

Regular timing
Mau Junction Departure: 6.30am
Varanasi City Arrival: 9.00am
Distance: 90kms
Time Taken: 3hrs 30 minutes

On the day of the incident
May Junction Arrival: 9.18am (Delay: 3hrs)
Varanasi City Arrival: 10.57am
Time Taken: 1hr 40 minutes
Average Speed: 54 km/h
Delay from Regular Timing at final destination: 2hrs

The train did get delayed at final destination but reduced it from 3 hrs to 2hrs. I think this is common where trains do make up for the delay by speeding up. Maybe fog cleared by 9am and there was better visibility and all trains in the route gained speed. Average of 54km/h is very good considering there were 4 intermediate stops and I hope the train did not skip them.

[balenoed_]

If delayed, wouldn't the train by default pick up to top speed to compensate for the lost hours? Does it a take a tweet for the railways to do this?

Anyways, nice gesture and kudos if railways really pulled it through than usual.

[tharian]

Originally Posted by swissknife

A question comes to my mind. If the train was delayed due to fog, was it safe to have the train travel at its fully rated speed or more to make up the lost time?

Originally Posted by balenoed_

If delayed, wouldn't the train by default pick up to top speed to compensate for the lost hours? Does it a take a tweet for the railways to do this?

Anyways, nice gesture and kudos if railways really pulled it through than usual.

My guess as to what would have happened.

If a train is running late due to whatever reasons, it gets delayed more and more even after clearing the situation/incident that delayed it in the first place. This is so other trains are not delayed due to this one trains delay. So it let's all other trains over take it or cross it which finally adds to a much longer delay by the time it reaches it's destination.

In this case, I guess that did not happen and it was given a free run at MPS(max permissible speed) till destination. Of course all trains have a one hour lag in it's timetable so even if it is actually running late by half hour or an hour till the penultimate halt, it reaches on time or before time at it's final destination. This would have helped as well to show the train reached on time here.