A journey with migrants on an unreserved general coach of the Coromandel Express

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For five hours, Srichandra Kumar, an 18-year-old from Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh, has been confined to a cramped space in the passage near the toilet of the general-class unreserved coach on the 12841 Coromandel Express (Shalimar-Chennai Central)...

Images of the tragic train accident involving the Coromandel Express, which claimed the lives of 288 people at Bahanaga Bazar Railway Station, may well have been haunting his mind, but the determined migrant labourer Srichandra would have banished the lingering fear to the back of his mind as he boarded the train from Shalimar station in Kolkata...

Two general coaches of Coromandel Express were jam-packed on June 13, leaving little space for additional passengers boarding the train at Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur-Keonjhar Road, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar railway stations..

The Coromandel Express 1,662-km-long route, which passes through West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, is travelled by the train in less than 26 hours. 400 is the fare for unreserved general coaches, but a sizeable number of passengers travel without ticket..

Mahatab Alam (32), an authorised food vendor working in Coromandel Express for the past nine years who has learnt the art of jostling through crowded general coaches, says, Packaged food during dinner and lunch sell like hotcakes in general bogies..

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