Sri Lanka Railways General Manager Dhammika Jayasundera yesterday said train services will resume from October 15.
He was adressing the media after inspecting development work being carried out at the Hatton Railway Station yesterday (7).
The General Manager traveled by train from Kandy to Badulla to look into development activities on the upcountry railway lines system and railway stations. When the country was reopened subject to travel restrictions on October 1, the Railway Department had been ready to operate 108 trains but health sectors had informed them to postpone running trains for two weeks.
He said that department is ready to operate trains from October 15. We are expecting instructions for this from the Transport Ministry. We have made arrangements to introduce a number of office trains. We have introduced express office trains from the Kurunegala, Panadura
and Veyangoda Railway Stations. He added that these trains can accommodate 25,000 seated passengers. During the period when the COVID-19 pandemic did not exist, the Railways Department earned about Rs.500 million monthly.
He said the department had focused on increasing the quantity of goods transported by train. A group of engineers from the Railway Department together with Central Province Railway
Transport Supervisor D.M.Dissanayake participated in this observation tour.
