South Eastern Railway hit following agitation at Markona station

Kolkata, Oct 22 (IANS) Services of South Eastern Railway (SER) were adversely hit on Saturday following an eight-and-half-hour-long agitation by commuters at Markona station in Odisha.

Locals, demanding stoppage of some mail and express trains and extension of passenger trains, stopped train movement during the stir, which began at 7.45 a.m. and lasted till 4.15 p.m.

An SER release said a number of trains including the Howrah-Bhubaneswar Janshatabdi Express, both up and down Balasore-Bhadrak-Balasore Passenger and Khurda Road-Kharagpur Passenger were cancelled during the day.

The Bhubaneswar-Howrah Janshatabdi Express, scheduled to start from Bhubaneswar on Sunday, has also been cancelled.

A large number of up and down trains -- including the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, Bhubaneswar-Howrah Jan Shatabdi Express, Thiruvananthapuram-Shalimar Express, Puri-Howrah Shatabdi Express, Hyderabad-Howrah East Coast Express, Yesvantpur-Howrah Duronto Express, Secunderabad-Howrah Falaknuma Express, Odisha Sampark Kranti Express, Howrah-Secunderabad Falaknuma Express and New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express -- were detained at various stations.