From rxpgnews.com
Goods train service suspended
By IANS,
May 9, 2007 - 4:47:03 PM
Raipur, May 9 - Goods trains carrying iron ore from Bailadila to Vishakhapattanam were suspended for the second consecutive day Wednesday after Maoists damaged the railway track near Bhansi railway station in Dantewada district in Chattisgarh Tuesday.
The trains, transporting large supplies of iron ore for exports to China and Japan and for domestic purposes, had to be suspended as railway authorities struggled to remove a derailed train and repair the 13-metre rail track uprooted by Maoist militants in India's largest and finest quality iron ore stocks belt at Bailadila hills in Chhattisgarh.
Maoists damaged the railway track near Bhansi railway station in India's worst hit district of Dantewada, derailing three bogies of the iron ore loaded goods train Tuesday and abducted the driver and guard. They were released later.
'The transportation of iron ore from Bailadila to the port city of Vishakhapattanam remained suspended for the second day as repair work was in full swing Wednesday. We hope to resume normal service by evening,' said a senior official of the public sector National Mineral Development Corp -.
India's largest iron producer and exporter NMDC has had major mining facilities in Bailadila hills for about three decades to cater to the large domestic demand and export to China and Japan via Andhra Pradesh's port city, Vishakhapattnam.
Bailadila hills, which have almost 18 percent of the country's known iron ore reserves, are divided into 14 deposits. NMDC excavates in the three bigger deposits and then transports the ore by train that plies on the 446-km K-K - line.
'The railways and the NMDC have suffered losses in millions due to the halt in iron ore transportation for the past 30 hours. Even the lone passenger train originating from Bailadila's Kirandul station and run on the same track was suspended Wednesday,' added the NMDC official.
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