Patna,(BiharTimes): Their number was not much as they could not know much in advance the inaugural train journey. Yet whosoever travelled on Patliputra-Barauni DEMU in its first journey on February 3––exactly 14 years after the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation stone of Digha-Sonepur bridge––had to face immense hardship.

The train––with several top state BJP leaders as passengers––remained stranded for over four hours at Pahleja junction as the local villagers squatted on the track demanding the renaming of the railway station.

Their argument was that the station is actually situated in Bharpura and should thus be named after it and not Pahleja.

DRM Sonepur, SDO of Sonepur, along with the RPF and Bihar police personnel rushed to the spot. The agitating people decided to lift the sit-in only after much persuasion and assurance by the SDO that a written plea has been made to the railways to change the name.

Earlier on Tuesday they had ransacked the office of station manager of Pahleja to press their demand.
The Commissioner of Railway Safety P K Acharaya last month gave clearance to run passenger trains on this mega bridge with a certain speed limit.

State BJP bigwigs Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav, Prem Kumar, Mangal Pandey and others were travelling on this train which was to run via Shahpur Patori. After remaining stranded for hours some of them returned to Patna on car.

The Patliputra-Barauni DEMU would start from Patna every morning at 8:55 PM and reach Barauni at 12:10 PM and would return the same day to Patliputra. It would leave Barauni at 3:00 PM ande reach Patliputra at 7:00 PM.

At least six passenger trains would run on this bridge initially while express trains would start running four months after the notification is issued.

Two pairs of passenger trains have been extended up to Pataliputra. They are Gorakhpur-Sonepur passenger and Raxaul-Narkatiaganj-Hajipur Inter City.