Mamata flags off Sealdah-New Delhi Duronto Express
By IANSFriday, September 18, 2009
KOLKATA - Fulfilling a budget promise, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday flagged off the Duronto Express - a non-stop train that will cover the 1,454 km distance between Sealdah in West Bengal and New Delhi 90 minutes quicker than the Rajdhani.
While the Rajdhani Express completes the journey in 18 hours, Duronto takes only 16 hours and 30 minutes.
The train will adhere to the speed limit of 110 kmph, but reach faster as there are not commercial stoppages. The Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express has six commercial stoppages.
The Sealdah-New Delhi Duronto will have one AC I-tier coach, three AC II-tier coaches, four AC III-tier coaches and five economy AC III-tier coaches besides generator cars.
The Duronto rakes comprise ICF coaches used in the Rajdhanis and Garib Raths earlier. The Garib Raths had AC III-tier coaches that could accommodate more passengers than usual.
Each Duronto coach is 24 metres long, compared to the regular coach length of 22.3 metres. The distance between coaches is less too - 460 mm instead of the regular 960 mm.
Besides safety and hygiene features like dustbins and fire extinguishers, the trains have sleeker designs for bottle holders and switches, mobile charging points, sliding transparent doors between coaches, and LED night lamps instead of regular fluorescent lights.
The train is built of stainless steel, which is lighter, anti-corrosive and more durable than the conventional ‘cotton steel’.
An important safety feature is the central buffer couplers whose enhanced load capacity makes the train derailment-proof.
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September 20, 2009: 9:53 am
On 18-09-2009, Miss Mamata Banerjee has flagged off Sealdah-New Delhi Durant Express in presence of few sycophant spineless greedy ‘so-called’ intellectuals performing tricks and feats of jugglery and dancing shamelessly to her tunes in a function organized by incurring huge expenditure from exchequer extravagantly in these days of austerity drive. It is shocking to say the least that in order to obtain narrow political mileage Miss Banerjee has whimsically introduced the bullet speed Durant Express Train without considering track position and safety & security of the passengers. Whole of Raniganj and Jharia Coalfields stand in great danger owing to unscientific, slaughtering, indiscriminate and illegal coal mining operations carried out over 200 years by erstwhile private owners, Coal India Limited and coal mafias. More than 200 locations have already been declared unsafe and insecured by the Director General of Mines Safety, Dhanbad. The list is becoming lengthier with each day passing. Incidents of subsidence, gas, fire, burning of underground coal, blasting and deaths have become a day-to-day regular feature. Railway tracks running through these belts are situated on vast stretches of endangered zones. It is needless to mention that the areas lying underground and near the railways tracks are considered unsafe. The train is consisting of 16 compartments has been assembled with 10 condemned compartments of “Rajdhani Express”, 6 condemned compartments of “Gareeb Rath” and an old engine brought from Ghaziabad. Are the lives of passengers less valuable than the political ambitions and whims of the ‘Didi’? Would it be unreasonable if the train is named “Durant (Suicidal) Express”? If any kind of accident takes place on any day at any moment for satisfying the whims and caprices of Mamata Banerjee for electoral gains, the entire responsibility and onus thereof will remain with her only and none else. |
Pablo Neruda