Ludhiana: Fog hits rail traffic; more coming, warns MeT

Most of the trains, which were scheduled to arrive later in the day, were also running late; Sachkhand Express was supposed to leave Amritsar by 7.30 am but officials were expecting it to reach Ludhiana after 4.30 p

The rail traffic remained sluggish on Friday as most of the trains ran behind their schedules due to dense fog covering the region. As many as eight trains have reached the Ludhiana station late since Thursday midnight. These included the Howrah Mail which was supposed to arrive by 5:30 am but turned up at the station 3:55 hours behind schedule. The Jhelum Express, which was to arrive at 4:01 am, reached five hours after its scheduled time. The Amritsar Express was late by 2:50 hours and the Katra-Delhi Vande Bharat was late by 1:50 hours.

Passengers wait for trains at the Ludhiana railway station on Friday. (Manish/HT)

Most of the trains, which were scheduled to arrive later in the day, were also running late. Sachkhand Express was supposed to leave Amritsar by 7:30 am but officials were expecting it to reach Ludhiana after 4:30 pm.

Ever since fog covered the region, the rail traffic has slowed down, leaving the passengers in lurch. The platforms of the Ludhiana railway station were teeming with desperate crowds eagerly waiting for any train to their destinations.

“We are going to Madhya Pradesh. We need to catch a train from Delhi tonight. Looking at the crowd, it seems very unlikely that there will be any space in the coaches when the train finally arrives,” said Pardeep Kumar, who waited at the station with his family of five, including two children and his elderly father.

The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Chandigarh centre said Ludhiana had dense fog in the wee hours of Friday with a visibility of around 50 metres. The IMD issued a yellow alert for Saturday with light showers accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning. The weatherman also issued an orange alert for Sunday and Monday with dense to very dense fog followed by a yellow alert for Wednesday with dense fog.

Meanwhile, Punjab Agricultural University’s (PAU) department of climate change and agricultural meteorology predicted a cold wave for the coming days. The maximum temperature was 4.1 degrees less than the normal on Friday. The normal for the day was 17.9 degrees Celsius, while the actual maximum temperature was 13.6 degrees Celsius.

Pavneet Kaur Kingra, head of PAU’s department of climate change and agricultural meteorology, said, “The maximum temperature has fallen more than 4 degrees Celsius and given the alert issued for the coming days, the temperature is expected to stay significantly below the normal which makes a cold wave possible.”