Patna, March 27: Two pairs of passenger trains would start plying on the Munger rail bridge within a week.
The first goods train used the rail-cum-road bridge on March 12.
The bridge would reduce distance of Munger from places such as Begusarai to a great extent. East Central Railway (ECR) chief public relations officer (CPRO) Arvind Kumar Rajak said: "From March 16 to 19, commissioner of railway safety P.K. Acharya along with chief administrative officer (construction) L.M. Jha, ECR chief engineer A.K. Dubey and ECR deputy chief engineer Ashutosh Kumar Mishra inspected the bridge. On March 26, Acharya gave the permission to start passenger train with speed limit of 70 kmph."
To begin with, the railways have decided to run two pairs of passenger trains - one between Jamalpur and Khagaria and another Jamalpur and Begusarai.
One has to travel 139km to reach Jamalpur (in Munger) from Khagaria but the passenger train will reduce the distance to 28km. Besides, the district headquarters of Munger will be easily accessible.
Travelling to Begusarai from Munger is a time consuming affair. One has to go by road from the district to Mokama and then take NH-30 to reach Begusarai. The journey takes about six hours. Now, the journey will be reduced to half-an-hour.
About the date on which the trains would start, Rajak said: "Within one week, the trains will start. Initially, we start with two pairs of trains but soon the number would be increased in coming days."
