Station master’s strike: Irate railway commuters take it out on trains

By Saman Indrajith and Cyril Wimalasurendre

Angry passengers attacked several trains, when they were cancelled due to the ongoing station masters’ trade union action. General Manager – Railways said that over 200 scheduled trips had been cancelled as a result. The strike, which commenced on midnight Wednesday was schedule to end at midnight yesterday.

Passengers attacked the Batticaloa bound train from Colombo on Wednesday midnight after the train stopped at the Kekirawa Station.

The passengers travelling to Badulla from Colombo were stranded at the Kandy railway station on Wednesday 12 midnight as the night train was halted at the Kandy railway station due to strike by the Station Masters. The stranded train passengers demanded a solution to their issue and damaged the guard post at the railway station. Some of the passengers were returning home after working in Colombo. Kandy police sent a team to the railway station to maintain peace and deployed several buses to send the passengers home.

Passengers who had booked long distance trains too were inconvenienced yesterday as all long distance trains were cancelled. Several railway stations had taken steps to reimburse passengers who had bought tickets.

Several office trains and all long-distance trains were canceled yesterday following the strike launched by station masters. The General Manager of Railways said that they were trying to operate around 80 office trains.

The Sri Lanka Railway Station Masters’ Union launched a 24-hour token strike effective from midnight Wednesday (12).

The union was expressing anger at several recent developments including the practice of canceling long-distance trains without prior notice, the chairman of the union Sumedha Somarathna said. In recent weeks a number of long distance trains had been canceled a few hours before their scheduled departure time. By that time seats were reserved and angry passengers had vent their frustrations upon the station masters, Somarathna said.

“We feel that this is a deliberate move by the senior management. What purpose this would serve is beyond our conjecture,” he said.