Railways on slow track in Internet age

The Government is pouring millions of dollars for an advertising promotion abroad to have more tourists visit Sri Lanka.

This is particularly after a drop in arrivals following the April 21 Easter Sunday attacks.

Most of the tourists use trains or buses as their mode of transport in Sri Lanka. And the encounters they face with Sri Lanka Railways are not only a blow to tourist promotion efforts but also to local travellers.

Here is one such instance which is a poser for the General Manag e r of t he Railways.

A Maharagama resident wanted to travel by train to Jaffna. He used the line of a stateowned mobile phone network to make a booking since it has an arrangement with the Railways.

The person who answered without much ado booked him on a morning train without responding to the questions raised. When the passenger later learnt there were trains leaving earlier, he phoned to cancel his reservation and book afresh. Though the cancellation was made, the person who answered the phone said there would be no refund. Then on the same mobile phone, a fresh booking was made for an earlier train. That only meant he was paying double the fare for a single ticket.

When the passenger sent a messenger with a photocopy of his NIC card and the reference of the booking to obtain the ticket, it was refused. The passenger, an official said, should be present in person.

He turned up at the Fort Railway Station on the day of travel at 3.30 a. m. to collect his ticket since the journey was important. The reservations office was closed. So was the Inquiries counter.

They opened only half an hour before the departure of the train. Th e t i cke t w a s obtained but there were no checks of any sort. He boarded the train and found that in the middle of the seat given to him was a huge hole. He had to make do.

The same treatment was meted out to two Sri Lankan expatriates who had arrived by air from Canada. From the Colombo airport, they had driven straight to the For t Railway Station. They had to wait for nearly three hours for the reservation counter to open. If there was a long queue, he would have missed the train.

It was another two days later that the passenger learnt the first booking was cancelled. In the 168-year old railways, not much seems to have changed. High time the Railway authorities put their house in order.