Passengers travelling between two industrial town of Jharkhand, including Dhanbad and Jamshedpur heaved a sigh of relief as Swarnrekha Express (13301/13302) running between Dhanbad and Jamshedpur returned on track on May 1 after a gap of more than 25 months.

The train, after leaving Dhanbad station at around 5.35 am, reached Tatanagar station at 11.15 am while during the return journey the train left Tatanagar station at 1.50 pm to reach Dhanbad at 7.08 pm.

The train this time however has lesser number of local stoppages as unlike the previous schedule it will not stop at Sindri Block halt, Patherdih, Sudamdih, Bhojudih and Santhadih and will directly reach to Adra as first stoppage at 8.05 am after departing from Dhanbad Station at 5.35 am.

The train however will stop at all other stoppages as per the previous schedule from Adra onwards, including at Anara on 8.43 am, Purlia at 9.15 am, Chandil at 10.13 am. Notably, Swarnrekha Express is the only direct train express train between Dhanbad and Jamshedpur and due to its suspension, passengers had no choice either to make the journey in buses or travel in Jhargram MEMU train which connects Dhanbad and Jhargram but has relatively odd timing as after leaving Dhanbad at around 2.20 pm reaches Tatanagar at around 7.15 pm as an intermediate station.

Railway meanwhile has also converted six passenger trains running through Dhanbad Division as Express trains including Gaya Asansol MEMU train, Asansol Gaya MEMU train, Varanasi Asansol MEMU train, Asansol Varanasi MEMU, Barddhaman Hatia MEMU and Hatia Barddhaman MEMU.

Though, there will be no change in stoppages or coaches of these trains as these trains will stop at all stations and halts as per previous schedule the passengers instead of paying the minimum fare of Rs 10 of passenger trains will now have to pay the minimum fare of Rs 30 of express trains.

Rajesh Gupta, Patron of Federation of Dhanbad Zila Chamber of Commerce and Industry who is also the member of Divisional Railway Users Consultative Committee said “though we welcome the restoration of Swarnrekha Express but we feel that withdrawing the important stoppages like Sindri is not good decision it will cause difficulty to passengers”

He also opposed the decision of the railway to convert passenger trains into express trains and claimed that it will put an extra financial burden on common people, particularly the daily wage earners.