Data reveals average Indian Railways train delay time rose to 53 minutes in 2017

Many of us have endured the agony of waiting for trains after a delay. There have been a number of reforms in Indian Railways, however, it seems that the problem of delays isn't going anytime soon.

Data released by MyTrainStore - a website that helps and informs travellers making a journey through Indian Railways - says that waiting times for trains are becoming longer.

In 2017, the average delay on all trains was 53 minutes, up from 45 minutes the previous year. Earlier in May, official data said that Indians Railways punctuality performance in 2017-18 was worse in comparison to the two financial years before that, with almost 30 percent of its trains running late

In terms of the worst, West Bengal’s Howrah division was punctual only 34 percent of the time, followed by the Lucknow division at 39 percent. Among zones, South East Central is the worst performer with punctuality of 43.8 percent.

The railways take into account factors like switching from diesel to electric, changing the locomotive, maintenance and mandatory safety examinations while setting the timetable for a train.

As per a Railway Board official quoted in a report by Business Standard, major routes are often congested up to 150 percent with around 60 percent of tracks being above 100 percent in terms of capacity utilization.

Data about the last three months, as per MyTrainStore, shows an average delay on the Howrah-Patna section of 253 minutes, Delhi-Dibrugarh of 232 minutes, Mumbai-Amritsar - 62 minutes and Mumbai-Delhi - 16 minutes.

CEO and co-founder of MyTrainStore Manish Rathi said in the report that the number of train delays has constantly increased in the past years, affecting passengers in almost all stations.

Also, in April, locomotive failures rose by 416 percent while wagon failures went up by 313 percent compared to the same period last year.

The railway official also said in the report that track maintenance was the main contributing factor as the resulting blocks lead to speed restrictions. Tracks were blocked for over 5,000 hours, due to various reasons, compared to 4,000 hours last year. He added that a small signal failure on busy routes like Allahabad-Ghaziabad would lead to a butterfly effect of track and terminal congestions.