Ranchi, July 1: The Ranchi division of the South-Eastern Railway brought about some changes in the train timetable from today.

Excepting a few major changes of a handful of the trains, the timings of all the important trains leaving Ranchi as well as Hatia railway stations have undergone just minor changes.

While the timings of important trains like the Rajdhani Express and the Howrah-Ranchi Shatabdi Express have been kept intact and would ply on timings as before, the timings of trains like the Hatia-Yesvantpur Express and the Hatia-Jharsukda Passenger have undergone major changes. The Hatia-Yesvantpur Express, which earlier departed from Hatia at 5.45 pm would now leave Hatia at 10.30 pm.

Similarly, the Hatia-Jharsukda Passenger, which departed from Hatia at 10.20 am would now leave at 7.45 pm. Apart from this, the Ranchi Lokmanya Tilak Express which used to leave at 8.10 pm would now leave Hatia at 8.40 pm. But at the same time, the Hatia-Howrah Express, which departed from Ranchi at 8.35 pm would now leave at 9.20 pm.

The Hatia-Patna Express would now leave at 6.55 pm from Ranchi while Alleppey-Dhanbad Express would leave at 10.30 am with only minor changes made in it from the earlier one. Similarly minor changes have also been made in the Hatia-Dhanbad Intercity Express which would now leave Ranchi at 5.45 pm.

The railway authorities maintained that the timings have been changed according to the annual changes made by the central authority. The officials further added that except these trains, the timings of other trains have just goneminor changes. The differences of the timings of other trains are between five and 15 minutes, maintained the officials.

Interestingly, although the railway officials maintained that the changes are annual and done every year coming into effect from July, there were many at the Ranchi railway station who were in the dark about the new train timings.

Suresh Singh, one of the passengers who had come for reservation said: ?Although I now know and even if the new timings would be mentioned in the ticket, the railway authorities should have notified about it all the same.?

Reacting to this, Ranchi railway station manager Debabrata Mukherjee said: ?We publish booklets every year and also advertise through the media about the train timings.?