Do you know that as soon as a train enters the state of Bihar it gets transformed into a Bullock Cart? Why bulls feel that they can beat the trains in a race? And why passenger feels that a bullock cart will be a better and cheaper option to complete the journey?

Meanwhile if you are interested in bullock carts - this is a beautiful bullock cart showpiece.

A bullock cart train


This could be as a result of some special divine power. We don't know, but the speed gets dramatically decreased from 110 kph to 19 kph. Some bullock carts run faster than that speed, especially when bulls are hungry.

Most trains from Delhi reach Gorakhpur railway station on time, but after that when they will finally reach their destination is anybody's guess. It's not that there is no schedule for trains running in Bihar, but due to aforesaid unknown divine power all trains suddenly start disobeying the train timetable and as soon as they enter the northern Bihar border.

A fast train by the name 'Saptkranti express' while moving from Muaffarpur to Motipur covers the journey of 26 km in 20 minutes. But on return journey the same train takes 57 minutes to complete the same distance between the two stations. It is said that In Bihar a station master and railway chief controller can make a train stay at any station for any length of time. And when train finally starts it starts crawling rather than running at full speed.

Railway board itself keep the trains running through Bihar at a lower level as compared to status of trains running through other states of India. This is clear from the timetable of these trains. It is decided that a train moving from Muzaffarnagar to Delhi will take 3 hrs and 18 minutes to reach Bagaha. But for return journey the time to travel is increased to 4 hrs and 24 minutes. An increase of more than 1 hr. The situation is same for most long distance trains. At an average, all the trains reach Bihar with a delay of  1.5 hrs. Some trains get delayed by as much as 6 hrs.

The situation of tracks in northern bihar is so poor that a train to cover even a short distance of 113 km a train has to dramatically slow down, up to the speeds of bullock carts, at 17 points. Trains run at top speed of 19 kph at some of these places. Between Narkatiaganj and Muzaffarpur there are 11 such points where trains are required to crawl.Similarly there are 22 points between Katihar and Muzaffarpur where a trains has to run at its minimum speed. 

The wheels of trains almost gets jammed when they enter Bihar. There are 3 places in Muzaffarpur railway yard, Muaffarpur-Ramdayalu nagar, turki yard, 2-2 places each in sarai and hazipur, dighwara, golden ganj, 2 places near chapra kacheri station, and 4 places near chapra yard where trains are forced to mover at speeds between 10 and 30 kph only, causing huge delays and frustration among passengers.

The reason given by railway officials for slowdown of trains in the aforementioned sections are manifold. Some of them are - lack of railway stations. single track, work in progress of converting single track to double track, and even conspiracy of central government.

There is a clear difference in terms of time taken by up and down trains. For example, a train named 'Vaishali Superfast express' which runs between Barauni and New Delhi takes 3 hrs and 5 minutes to cover a distance of 175 km between Muaffarpur and Siwan. While the same train takes 48 minutes more on its return journey  from Delhi to cover the distance between the same two stations.

Another train, namely 'Sampark Kranti Super Fast Express' takes 3 hrs to run from Muaffarpur to Siwan. Same train, on its return journey from Delhi, takes 4 hrs.

A bullock cart driver has claimed that he can cover the distance between some of these stations in Bihar faster trains with his bulls and cart. For the sake of his good health, we have deiced not to disclose the name of bullock cart driver.

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