80 more trains to be speeded up

Enthused by the results of speeding up of 84 trains by five minutes to an hour, Railways have now decided to reduce the running time of 80 more trains plying through the State by 10 minutes to more than 30 minutes. Commuters can look forward to speedier travel with the Railways commencing the ground work to reduce the running time of trains and operate more trains in the coming months. A two-pronged action plan has been worked out to increase the sectional and loop line speeds already. For this, Railways will increase the speed of these trains, mostly express services, to the permissible maximum speed of 110 km an hour (kmph). “The trains will be speeded up from the 50-100 kmph range to 90-110 kmph. This will reflect in the Railway timetable that will come into effect from July,” Divisional Railway Manager Rajesh Agrawal told The Hindu . The speeding of 84 trains had come in handy for the Railways, which was finding it difficult to introduce the newly sanctioned trains. The Railways will also have to go in for sequencing and scheduling of trains, monitoring of trains at coaching depots and stations, and revise the guidelines among other things for reducing the running time of the trains. The speeding up of the new 80 trains will be done without affecting the timings of the trains. The aim is to run trains from Thiruvananthapuran Central to Ernakulam in two-and-a-half hours to three hours and from Thiruvananthapuram Central to Kozhikode in five-and-a-half hours, he said. As per the action plan, the speed of trains on the Shoranur-Ernakulam section will be increased from 80 kmph to 90 kmph, from 80 kmph to 100 kmph on the Ernakulam-Alappuzha-Kayamkulam sector and from 90 kmph to 100 kmph on the Munroethurthu-Kayamkulam section. On the Kayamkulam-Thiruvananthapuram Central stretch, the speed will be increased from the existing 100 kmph to 110 kmph. The speed of trains will go up from 80 kmph to 100 kmph on the Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil section and from 90 kmph to 110 kmph on the Nagercoil-Tirunelveli stretch. The trains will run at a speed of 90 kmph on the Nagercoil-Kanyakumari section (existing 75 kmph), 90 kmph on the Thrissur-Guruvayur (existing 50 kmph) and 100 kmph in the Haripad-Kayamkulam section (existing 70 kmph). On the Ernakulam-Munroethurthu and Kayamkulam-Mavelikara sections, the speed will be increased from 70 kmph to 100 kmph. Trains will run at 100 kmph on the Chengannur-Mavelikara section (existing 80 kmph) once the bottlenecks are cleared. The proposal to limit the number of stops for the superfast trains to six on the Thiruvananthapuram-Shornur stretch remains on paper. (S. Anil Radhakrishnan,The Hindu dt 21-1-2013)