The station superintendent of Bhubaneswar railway station fields questions from irate passengers on bandh Monday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, July 5: The occasion: bandh. The venue: the enquiry counter of the capital’s railway station. The atmosphere: chaotic.

Stranded passengers vent their fury on the railway staff. But K.B. Rao and his team handled the tense situation with exemplary calm.

The chief ticket collector, a few ticket collectors and train timing announcers did not display any irritation as they dealt with the frustrated passengers.

“People like us, who man the enquiry counters and emergency helplines, should not lose their cool. It is very difficult to deal with angry passengers. Unless you are calm, it is very tough to cope with the situation,” Rao said.

Ticket collector D Jaykumar (34) was desperately trying to pacify aggrieved passengers, who mobbed him at the enquiry counter. His colleague Kedar Nayak was busy answering questions of stranded commuters about the location and timing of trains.

“Our job requires us to be patient in the face of continuous calls, many of them from persons who are angry, agitated and seeking immediate information. The commuters even use harsh words. But we never answer back,” Jaykumar said.

“There is absolutely no logic behind passengers getting angry with us. What can we do if activists of various political parties squat on the tracks? We did our best to inform passengers about the change in train timings,” Nayak said.

On “normal” days, only two ticket collectors man the enquiry counter at Bhubaneswar railway station. But keeping in mind today’s bandh and the confusion that would doubtless accompany it, three more TCs were pressed into service.

Even five TCs were not enough to handle the tide of complaints from angry passengers. Apart from answering the questions of passengers at the enquiry counter, the TCs were also announcing the timing of trains that were cancelled, rescheduled and short-terminated due to the shutdown.

Besides, they were attending phone calls from the general public, the station master and the railway police simultaneously.

“At the same time, we were keeping track of the train indication board, manual board and national training enquiry,” another TC, Bikram Mallick said.

K.C. Dash, a stranded passenger, said: “Why are political activists putting passengers in trouble? The agitators should take on the Centre in Parliament, not on the streets and on railway tracks.”

Similar scenes of chaos could be seen at the Bhubaneswar station master’s office. Livid at the delay in train timings, a number of passengers besieged the station master, A.C. Sethi around 9am today and started shouting at him. Sethi was seen trying to pacify the crowd with a smile.

“Passengers ventilated their anger on us without any reason. If agitators were agitating on railway tracks, how can we give the green signal to trains,” he said. “But you need to handle the situation deftly by talking to passengers patiently,” Sethi said.

Till reports last came in, as many as 16 passenger trains and two super fast express trains (all plying within the state) were cancelled today. Three trains, including the Bhubaneswar-Howrah Jan Shatabdi Express, were short-terminated. The Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express was rescheduled to 3.15pm against its scheduled time of 9.15am.

The Puri-New Delhi Neelachal Express and the Puri-Howrah Dhauli Express were among some other trains that were also rescheduled today, sources said.