Jamshedpur: Nearly all long-distance trains passing through or arriving at Tatanagar station are running late by several hours despite the railways implementing a new timetable from November 1 promising punctual services.

Railway records reveal that several trains like Tata- Jammu Tawi Express (Dn), New Delhi-Puri Purushottam Superfast Express, Puri-Haridwar Kalinga Utkal Express, Mumbai Mail, Yeshwantpur- Tata Express and several others are regularly late much to the inconvenience of passengers. The Tata-Chhapra Express has been running at a delayed time because the train has been arriving late by at least an hour throughout the last week of October and the first week of this month.

Pleading helplessness Chakradharpur railway division spokesperson Bhaskar said, "We are not responsible as the trains get delayed in other railway divisions and zones before they enter Chakradharpur division of South Eastern Railway."

Signal delays and increase in freight train traffic in other divisions are believed to cause the delay.

Railway's October-November record book shows the Mumbai Mail, Howrah-Mumbai Geetanjali Express and Howrah-Ahmedabad Express arrived 15-30 minutes behind schedule on most days.

Even the superfast trains run much behind time. The New Delhi-Puri Purushottam Superfast Express runs late almost on a regular basis. On Wednesday the train arrived at Tatanagar around 10pm, 2 hours later than its scheduled arrival time of 8pm. On Thursday too the train was running inordinately late. Similarly, the Puri-Haridwar Kalinga Utkal Express was running over eight hours late while the Tata-Jammu Tawi Express (Dn) was running more than 12 hours late on Thursday.

Several passengers of Purushottam Superfast Express and Utkal Express dropped their travel plans because of the trains running late.