Kozhikode: The change in schedule of the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express has adversely disrupted the lives of regular passengers. With the new changes, the Executive Express, which used to reach Kozhikode at 9 p.m., now arrives only at 9.25 p.m. 

Passengers claim that since the change in timings, the Executive Express gets delayed by 20 minutes and arrives at Kozhikode station by around 9.40 pm. On Friday, the train arrived at Thalassery only at 11 p.m. As a result, many passengers who had to catch buses after deboarding were left in misery. 

Similarly, The Coimbatore – Kannur MEMU Express, which used to arrive at 6.25 pm, now reaches early at 5.45 pm. The changes were implemented from August 20 onwards.

According to railway authorities, the current change in train timings is not permanent and the delay in trains was because of temporary changes in the maintenance schedule. 

Due to the Onam rush and holidays, often the duration of train stoppages is extended by an additional two or three minutes at every station leading to the delay. However, services will be back to usual timings by the end of the Onam holidays, railway officials said. 

Meanwhile, the passengers’ earlier demand to run a MEMU service from Kozhikode is yet to be implemented. At present, there are no other trains towards the northern parts except for the Coimbatore – Kannur MEMU Express, at 5.45 pm. Hence, passengers have been stressing about the demand to restore the previous schedules.