Nearly 54 days after the lockdown came into force, the first outstation train from Delhi crossed into Kerala border and reached the capital city on Friday. The train which started from Delhi at 11:30am on Wednesday reached Thiruvananthapuram at 5:40am on Friday.
The 400 passengers who disembarked from the train at Thiruvananthapuram were subjected to thermal screening at 10 counters. Among the passengers, 150 were from the capital city, 84 from Kollam, 89 from Pathanamthitta, 37 from Alappuzha, 34 from Kottayam and 61 from Tamil Nadu.
All the passengers will have to undergo 14-day home quarantine. Those with symptoms will be taken to the General Hospital.
Around 25 KSRTC buses have been arranged to take the passengers to Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kottayam. The officials have also arranged five Tamil Nadu buses to take the 61 passengers to their homes.
Kozhikode was the first stop of the Special Rajdhani Express in Kerala,which reached at 10 pm with 216 passengers.
Soon after the passengers got down at the station, they queued up maintaining social distancing after which their travel pass was verified.
The passengers were then subjected to medical check ups before they were directed to vehicles meant for them to be carried to different destinations via KSRTC buses and special taxis.
According to railway officials, passengers bound for nearby districts of Kannur, Wayanad and Palakkad also alighted at Kozhikode.
The train which had only three stops in Kerala reached Ernakulam South station at 1:25 am with 269 passengers. Railway officials, who were in direct contact with the passengers, were in Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) at the three stations.
The Railways had stopped running passenger trains since March 22 this year. Only goods and parcel trains were being operated till May 1 in the wake of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
Railways had decided to run six Rajdhani trains between Kerala and New Delhi in a week, to help those who had been stranded after the Centre enforced a lockdown.
The New Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram train will run on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday every week, while the return trains will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. These trains will run via Konkan route.
Since the start of this month, the railway authorities are also operating Shramik special trains for ferrying the stranded migrant labourers to their native places.
The Railways has operated 800 Shramik Special trains since May 1, ferrying home 10 lakh migrant workers who were stranded in various parts of the country due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.
Proper screening of the passengers is being carried out before they board the trains, the Railways said.
From Monday, these Shramik Special trains started carrying around 1,700 passengers each, instead of the earlier 1,200, to ferry as many workers home as possible.
While initially these trains had no stoppages, the railways announced on Monday that up to three stoppages in the destination states will be allowed. The decision was taken after several state governments made a request in this regard.
