Suburban train commuters had a harrowing time on Friday when some services on the Sealdah main and north sections were truncated till Dum Dum and Dum Cantonment and over 80 trains were cancelled.

A 21-year-old passenger of a suburban train fell from an overcrowded compartment between Titagarh and Khardah stations in the morning and died, police said.

Friday was the first day when several trains in the suburban network were either curtailed or cancelled to make way for the extension of platforms 1 to 5 at Sealdah so they can accommodate local trains with 12 coaches, instead of nine.

The railways have said train services in the Sealdah North suburban section will be affected between Friday and Sunday because of the last leg of the extension work at Sealdah, one of the busiest in India.

The number of trains reaching the Sealdah main station was reduced significantly on Friday.

Mohammad Ali Hasan Ansari, a resident of Titagarh, who fell from a train, was taken to BN Bose Hospital in Barrackpore where he died, the police said.

Ansari’s co-passengers told the police he had not managed to get into the compartment and barely held onto a rod when the Dum Dum-bound local train left Titagarh station for Khardah. A few minutes later the youth’s grip gave way and he fell.

“He was hanging outside the compartment and fell while the train was crossing the leprosy centre in Titagarh,” a passenger said.

“Some of us rushed him to the hospital in Barrackpore,” the passenger said.

The morning peak hour on Friday saw platforms between Barrackpore and Dum Dum in the main section and Barasat and Dum Dum Cantonment in the north spilling over with passengers struggling to board overcrowded trains.

“More than 80 trains will remain cancelled, the railways have said.

“The officials possibly didn’t realise the impact it would have on commuters like us who want to reach offices on time,” said Debolina Ghosh, an Agarpara resident who works in Beleghata. “I had to skip three trains one after another in the morning. There was no space to step into the compartments.”

Several others said there were no announcements on the number of trains that have been cancelled for the day or about those running late.

“Why was this work of extending some of the platforms not carried out during the pandemic when only a handful of passengers would avail train services on emergency duty?” asked Anik Dutta Roy, a resident of Barasat on the Sealdah north section.

Senior railway officials said the work of upgrading the interlocking signal system would be on throughout Saturday and would be completed by Sunday afternoon.

“It isn’t that all trains in the Sealdah main and north sections have been stopped from reaching Sealdah station. Some 12 coach-trains will continue to reach Sealdah on platforms between 5 and 14 throughout Saturday,” an official said.

Close to 400 trains ply in this section every day, ferrying over 7 lakh passengers, railway officials said.