Indian Railways Needs And Suggestions

1.  New Survey Lines

2.  Electrification Projects

3.  Bye Pass Lines

4.  New Trains

5.  Increasing Frequency

6.  Extension of Trains

I. New Survey Line:

1. Kodaikanal - Tamilnadu:  As you are aware of kodaikanal a hill station in tamilnadu is visited by numerous tourists throughout the year. However as of date the tourists depend upon road commutation to reach hill top from the neareast railway heads, kodaikanal road or dindigul. So a feasibility/preliminary study may be undertaken to have rail connectivity from either kodaikanal road or dindigul.

2. Doubling & Electrification - Jhansi - Kanpur: The existing single line between jhansi and kanpur has since saturated. It is high time that railways take up the doubling of this stretch including electrification.

3. Doubling & Electrification - Tiruchirapalli - Thanjavur :The twin towns of tiruchirappalli and thanjavur the railway lines be doubled with electification. Since lot of commuters travel for work and education purposes.

II. Electrification Projects:
The following routes may be electrified at the earliest:

1. Bangalore - Salem - Electrification:The stretch between bangalore and salem may be electrified at the earliest.

2.  The main line between villipuram and tiruchirapalli may be electrified via thanjavur.

3. The long pending thirumalpur - Arakonnam electrification project may be completed at the earliest.

III. Bye-Pass Line

1. TamilNadu - Between Paranar and palur bye-passing chengalpattu: To provide an alternative route from chennai to kerala, bangalore, mumbai and coimbatore site trains bye-pass near chengalpattu will be laid. Between paranur and palur. This will enable running of circular trains as and when near thirumalpur, arakonnam electrification project is completed.

2. Andhra Pradesh: The erstwhile bye-pass line at gudur which was removed may be restored to enable the railways to run circular trains from chennai to thirupathi via sri kalahasthi and renigunta.

3. Ponmalai - Srirangam - TamilNadu-  The ongoing bye-pass work at ponmalai work at golden work be speeded up to run trains from Thanjavur and Chennai via srirangam.

4. Srirangam - Trichy Fort  - A feasibility study to lay a bye-pass line between srirangam and trichy fort involving construction of bridge across the river cauvery may be carried out.

5. Dharmapuri District - Tamilnadu - No Train Connectivity: The new line project/ bye-pass project between marapur and dharmapuri may be speeded upto run a direct train from chennai to dharmapuri. The only district in tamilnadu which is not connected by any train service other than krishnagiri.

IV. New Trains

1. Nav Bharath Express- A set/series(atleast 12 pairs) of super fast trains on the lines of Shatabdhi, Jan Shatabdhi, Garibh Rath, Sampark Kranthi, Premium trains(A/C), double decker, rajya rani etc,. may be introduced between important cities/state capitals, etc,. as inter city day expresses or overnight expresses or long distance trains.

 These set of trains be named as Nav Bharath express.

2. Neel Kamal Express - Jodhpur - Madurai or trichy: The proposed jodhpur - mannarkudi weekly expresses may be run between jodhpur and (nagarkovil or madurai or tiruchirapalli). The train can be named as Neel Kamal Express, Jodhpur being blue city and madurai for the famous meenakshi amman temple with the symbolic lotus flower in the pond and also symbolising BJP. In case the train is run between trichy and jodhpur the days of service can be on thursdays tx.ex jodhpur and monday or tuesday ex. tpj. Timings: Jodhpur 14:00 - trichy on saturday at 6:00 PM. Leaving trichy on monday/tuesday at 6:00 AM reaching jodhpur on wednesday/thursday at 10:00 AM.

3. A link express either from velankannai or nagore may run upto bangalore via trichy connecting nagarkovil - bangalore express at karur with departure bep at evening 6 pm daily. Karur arrival at 23:00 hrs on it's journey towards bangalore and 23:45 hrs on the return direction. Convenient and adequate platform vacancy during this time if available.

4. The chennai egmore - nagarkovil weekly express may be made a daily train.The existing rake (Madras MS-JU Jodhpur) can be utilised to increase the frequency of silambu express.

5. The by-weekly madurai - egmore super fast express via thanjavur may be made a daily train.

6. Existing rake (MDU Madurai - MZM Nizamuddin) be utilised to run madurai - tirupathi bi-weekly express.

7. The idling rake of semmozhli express at mannarkudi may be utilised to run inter city express from mannarkudi - dindigul - chennai.

8. Weekly train from chennai - bangalore via salem and dharmapuri may be run either via katpadi or virudhachalam may be named as Hoganekkal express.

9. Shirdi Shuttle - Daily shuttle between shirdi nagar - Pune for devotees of Shirdi Sai baba.

10. New trains from srirangam to chennai egmore via thanjavur be run.

11. Overnight Fast Passenger between chennai egmore and thanjavur can be run and be named as Brihadeeswarar fast passenger.

12. A new weekly express train or a fast passenger named as Karthikeya Express or Aru padai veedu express (6 Houses of Lord Muruga) connecting the six temples of Lord muruga namely Thiruthani, Swamimalai, Thirupparamkunram, Pazhamudircholai (Madurai) and  Tiruchendur with connection to Coimbatore (Marudamalai) via Palani at Dindigul.

The same rake may be utilised to run a Pancha Bhoodham express connecting Trichy(Thiruvanaikaval - Water), Chidambaram - Sky, Thiruvannamalai- Fire , Kancheepuram - Land and Kala Hasthi - Wind all having temples for Lord Shiva.

13. Nagpur - Chennai and named as Orange City Express

Increasing Frequency:

1. The weekly Garibh Rath Express between chennai central - Nizamuddin may be made a bi-weekly train.

Extension of Trains:

1. Brindavan express may be extended upto mysore on both the directions.

2. They mayiladhuthurai - trichy express may be extended to madurai and named as poombukar express.

3. The weekly express train between chennai - neyveli may be introduced as weekend express.

4. Chennai - Chidambaram and named as thillai express.

5. Chennai - Thiruvannamalai as annamalaiyar express.

• Premium Express trains should be available for booking by all modes i.e. Reservation counter also and the booking period should be increased to 30 days from 10 days. Currently it is restricted to online only and many are cancelled for non occupancy.
• New Set of trains named Nav Bharath trains can be launched connecting various regions of the country on the lines of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and other trains.
• An alternative bye-pass line is the need from connecting from Chengalpattu to Paranur & Palur railway station. The bye-pass line will help trains from Chennai to Bangalore, Mumbai and Kerala side trains.
• Travellator or Moving walkway similar along with extra space on the sides similar to the ones used in Indira Gandhi airport should be constructed to connect Park Town MRTS station in Chennai to Chennai Central railway station. Public find it difficult to catch trains as they have to walk across a bridge which is risky due to heavy vehicle movement.
• Chennai MRTS work between Velachery and St. Thomas mount is pending for more than 8 years needs to cleared from all judicial problems or connected to a new route to Alandur.
• Several gauge systems used in urban transportation affects repeated use of same rolling stock. Please recommend and increase funding to TN govt to construct Metro lines instead of Mono Rails. To effectively link all metro lines in future and to use same coaches and material repeatedly. The centre has also released funds for 1st phase of mono but work is yet to start.

Thanks

Venkatasubramanian B

Twitter: @bvenkat