Indian Railway's onTuesday announced the restoration of train services in Kashmir after it was stopped in the wake of heavy snowfall.

The Srinagar–Baramulla section and Srinagar–Banihal Section were cleared before permitting safe operation on the railway track. The railway track in the valley got covered under heavy snow with a thickness of 20 to 45 cm. Rail snow cutting machines were pressed into the service to clears snow over Railway Tracks.

The restoration of train services has now bought relief to the people of Kashmir who were earlier facing a lot of problems to commute within the territory especially in winters when the roads remain block due to snowfall.

The decision to re-start the train services in Kashmirvalley was taken after due security audits and assurance by GRP, Jammu and Kashmir. Accordingly, inspection and trial runs were undertaken betweenSrinagar – Baramulla Rail Section on November 10 and between theSrinagar-Banihal section on November 16.

A limited passenger service of two trains was commencedbetween Srinagar-Baramulla at 45 kilometers per hour on November 12 and fromSrinagar–Banihal Section on November 17 to benefit the thousands of localcommuters to travel by train over the entire area between Baramulla to Banihal(138 Km).

However, the period of train service has now been increasedfrom 5 hours to 9 hours and the section has been restored to its normal speedof 100 Kmph. The first train starts at 08:05 in the morning and all trainservices terminate at 5 pm.

Earlier, the inter-Kashmir valley train service wassuspended after the Centre scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution thatgranted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into UnionTerritories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.