Thrissur Railway Passengers' Association, TRPA is the confluence of all the stake holders who are interested in the development of Railway facilities in and around Thrissur. Naturally, all the people who avail Railway facilities from Thrissur and other neighbouring stations are automatically the members of this association. Due to the historic reasons, commuters from Thrissur towards Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Palakkad sides form the active group. TRPA always stands for meeting the public demands and this process is well supported by Railway Men, Political Leaders and the Media in Thrissur. The tireless efforts by TRPA in achieving the long standing basic requirements of Thrissur are well recognised and appreciated by one and all. TRPA is committed to continue its service to the society at large, cutting across all divisions. "Our prime focus is on the sustainable improvement of rail service in the country to world class levels with special emphasis on Thrissur"

Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Add more regular, special trains to up traffic: Experts

(Times of India dt 13-4-2017)
Southern Railway will need to act at express speed if it is to turn around a trend in which the zone recorded a high of 873 million passengers in 2012-13 and then witnessed a sharp dip in patronage, with only 798 million ticket-purchasing travellers in 2016-17.
Experts say senior offi cials of Southern Railway , which earns more by carrying passengers than freight, have to intervene immediately in various policy decisions and implementation of plans to stop it from speeding in the opposite direction of the rail ways' 16 other zones, which together added 70 million passengers in fiscal 2016-17.
The primary reason for the drop in passengers in Southern Railway is a gradual decrease in services, especially special trains, former Railway Board member Abraham Jacob said. “Officials have to operate as many passenger services as possible with the available infrastructure and coaches,“ said Jacob, Southern Railway chief operations manager till 2008. “We created enormous line capacity, especially on the south broad gauge [Chennai-Madurai-Kanyakumari] route, which is not being utilised properly despite burgeoning demand.“
Passenger associations in central and southern Tamil Nadu and in Kerala have repeatedly demanded more trains, pointing out that oper ators of costly long-distance buses were capitalising on the situation. The zone operated 1,384 specials in 2015-16; a statement on Tuesday said this figure dropped to 1,298 in 2016-17. Southern Railway operates specials for its convenience, not for maximum passenger occupation, a senior railway official said.
Officials said there was a Railway Board embargo on running specials in the first six months of 2016-17 because all were not making a profit.“Since the focus is on earnings and not passenger numbers, most special trains are Suvidha specials, which have fares up to five times the base fare without any value addition in service,“ Jacob said, adding that this led people to fly or travel by bus.
Line capacity and number of terminals should increase to operate more trains, an official said.
(Times of India Chennai dt 12-4-2017)

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