More than 100 travelers were abandoned at the Mobolaji Johnson Train Station in Ebute-Metta on Saturday because of deficient train coaches at the station.
It was gathered that numerous travelers who had bought the 8:30am tickets couldn’t jump aboard in light of the number of travelers that showed up for the train.
It was also learned that as a way to salvage the situation, the station had to issue penalty tickets to passengers after the regular tickets were exhausted.
The current carrying capacity of the train is about 588 passengers, with three business classes coaches containing 24, 56, and 68 passengers respectively and five standard classes containing 88 passengers each.
One of the passengers, Stephen Ogunnubi, who had planned to use the morning train but got there late, narrated his experience.
The passenger, who was miserable for missing the train, said that he was consoled when he learned that over 100 passengers who purchased tickets in the morning could not get on board and were currently waiting for the evening train.
He also said that the evening train, which was to take off by 4:30pm as earlier announced by the station, had a two-hour delay.
He said, “Due to traffic from Lekki, I arrived at the station about 11am. I asked around about the situation of things. They told me that I had to wait for the evening train.
“As I was complaining about this, one of the station workers asked me, ‘How about the people who purchased the morning ticket but could not make it?’
The travelers that I met revealed to me that the train was full interestingly. As a result of the quantity of individuals that ended up, the station needed to utilize penalty tickets and stamp the cost on them. I imagine that this turn out may be a result of the Muslims’ festive season.”
As of press time, all endeavors to get official responses from the Nigerian Railway Corporation were not effective.
Ada Peter
