By IANS,
New Delhi : It takes just two hours to travel from New Delhi to Mathura by train. Ravi Raman found himself covering the distance on the Sarvodaya Express in eight long hours — thanks to a blinding fog.
With visibility dropping to dangerous levels, the train crawled from the New Delhi railway station at midnight Thursday, reaching Mathura, only 135 km away, at 8 a.m. Friday.
Raman, 62, was shocked.
“After boarding the train Thursday night, I slept off. When I work up at 8 in the morning, I still had not reached Mathura station, which is otherwise only around two hours away from Delhi,” the distraught passenger told IANS.
Raman’s arrival in Delhi a day earlier by train had also been delayed by over five hours.
The fog fiasco caused many problems on the train.
“The on-train services were bad. Because of the delay, there was no food and water for a long time. There was a big fight because of that,” he said.
Raman’s train was one of 70 affected by the dense fog in Delhi, a Northern Railway spokesperson said.
But despite the chaos and delays, Raman is still in love with the railways. Asked if he would again board a train, more so in this weather, he replied: “Of course! Nothing can be done about the weather.”