Indian Railways – New Concept to run new trains with existing rakes

•Indian Railways must consider running new trains with idling rakes of trains for more than 10 hours in various stations across India. The idling rakes are those which have arrived early morning and will be put to use only in the night. So even if maintenance is done it will have window of 10 hours minimum to operate as a day time train. The idling rakes can play a major role in distance of 400kms or less with much ease and pair rakes available.
•If a pair of trains are idling at both points then they can be run in the day time to reach their respective starting points so the entire train is not affected at all at the same time the rake has been utilised for an extra journey also. This will help bring in Railways extra revenue as your idling rake is going to bring you revenue as well as you are completing maintenance in 4 hours or so also. The availability of engines must not be a major concern as we have enough engines and railway staff required. Railways might easily give some reasons for this method but at least give a try with few trains across India.
•This concept will be very useful in concepts of trains of less than 400kms distance or around with the time frame available. This concept can at least be tried in certain routes instead of down right saying it cant be possible. There is nothing wrong in trying new things there might be a very big scope to earn or double the revenue in a route by operating new trains which Indian Railways might not have even thought of.
•These trains can be trailed on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday only as other days the success of the scheme cant be ensured. Many will put leave on Friday and start to travel to their destination and same for Monday also. The 4 days can help reap in huge revenues in selecting routes and trains which can be considered for this concept. Also running second sitting trains if any rake unused at night can be used to shuttle a trip if possible for public.
•For example idling rakes of Rock Fort Express (Train No 1677 and 16178) which are unused from 05:30 to 22:30 can be used to run day time train between Chennai to Trichy which has super high demand for trains. Since the train has 2 pair of rakes it can be re-used once run as day time train and reaches the respective destinations for usage at night time for normal operations. It will be major success if trailed on Friday, Saturday, Sunday immediately to gauge success. Also DRM Chennai will take decision on time of trains based on maintenance schedule adjusted to succeed in this step.
•Similar pattern applies to Uzhlavan express (Train no : 16183/16184) (Can run one more trip between Chennai to Thanjavur) and pandian express (Train no: 12637/12638) (Can run one more trip between Chennai to Madurai) as day time trains instead of wasting double line between MAS-VM.
•Please consider launching train from New Delhi to Rameswaram as a mark of respect for APJ Abdul Kalam. The train can be named as APJ Abdul Kalam as a respect for the great soul. Currently trains are not run in the name of any personality. It can also be named of Govt choice if any concerns. The train must touch Chennai, Trichy, Madurai. The possible departure from Delhi on Sunday at 08:35 (Bhopal: 19:05, Nagpur:01:15, BALHARSHAH:04:30 Vijayawada: 11:35, Egmore:18:50, Villupuram: 21:20, Trichy: 00:35, Madurai:03:25, Rameswaram:07:30 ) or with Wednesday/Friday departure at New Delhi 06:45 (Bhopal: 16:15, Nagpur:22:20, BALHARSHAH:01:30 ,Vijaywada:08:00,Egmore:15:10, Villupuram: 17:50, Trichy: 21:00, Madurai: 00:15, Rameswaram: 04:30). The current Govt has got bad name for not running any new train for last 2 years and avoided this issue.
•Need for passenger or express trains between Chennai Egmore -  Tiruvannamalai (TNM) via Villupuram (VM) a religious town for Shiva named Annamalaiyar temple a representation of fire and is one of the Pancha Bhoota Stalas. There were trains run for decades before last government stopped the trains and forgot to re-run the trains. It has been a great difficulty for people as every day thousands have to go and buses are people have to entirely depend on buses to go to the temple. The train can be run with existing rake of Chennai – Pondicherry express rake to run a train departure from Chennai at 7AM reaches around 11:30 at tiruvannamal, return from Thiruvannamalai at 12 to Chennai at 1PM, Chennai to Thiruvannamalai between 1PM – 6PM, last train with overnight from Thiruvannamalai at 11:45 to travel overnight to Chennai at 05:00. Somehow you run a train at least twice or thrice a day. The train ran years ago but it was stopped for no reason and it has deprived temple goers severely as people and elderly prefer direct trains

Traffic at Tambaram West, Perungulathur, T.Nagar solutions

•The traffic at tambaram and perungulathur are a day to day affair for people exiting Chennai or entering Chennai. The traffic at perungulathur is due to convergence of traffic from CMBT and tambaram side to exit Chennai towards Villupuram, Thanjavur and Trichy and as buses stop to drop and pick up passengers when other vehicles cannot move around leading to traffic jams for several kms causing hours to cross this section of 5 kms day after day and in weekends it takes several hours. I am not sure if CM has been informed of the situation which is causing difficulty for decades.
•Immediate solution for perungulathur will be demolishing the buildings and land space and compound walls immediately after perungulathur bus stop towards Villupuram to gain some space up to Shriram IT Gateway. You can gain some space by reducing width of the medians up to Vandalur. One side we have Railway station but we have not used the land or build road close to the compound wall to put to good use. We have space for one more bus to park also. The signal immediately near perungulathur is very small width and removing buildings and old police station building there will help get enough space to prevent traffic blockage as buses which enter GST again from bus stand. If in Medavakkam TN Govt can solve issue then in perungulathur also we can solve the cost of solution will be much cheaper compared to the 10 year old issue.
•There is a need for flyover/underpass at perungulathur starting at least 1 km away (small flyover will again lead to more traffic) for vehicles which need to cross this junction. This flyover will benefit trucks and cars which can cross with ease. The lack of Development of new IT companies post perungulathur is the fear that employees might not reach on time due to traffic jam preventing lack of investments in Guduvanchery and other areas as per previous expectations. If we use underpass it can exit post Guduvanchery or up to 1st toll in GST near Paranur with toll road underneath. Building underneath roads is common globally.
•The flyover in tambaram west side is being put to wrong use. The buses entering the tambaram west bus stand near railway station enter exactly near the mouth of the flyover leading to improper usage. The buses must enter the bus stand below the flyover at least 300 metres away from mouth to enable buses to enter and exit easily. The removal of temporary and movable medians at tambaram west causes difficulty for even buses to move easily. It seems like Traffic police have ill planned the entire process here. Drones will give a clear picture of the traffic to design better solutions.
•There is also need for flyover starting near tambaram west bus stand and crossing MEPZ signal to ease traffic congestion. Or independent flyovers/grade separators at tambaram west and MEPZ for ease of traffic during peak hours. Public feedback through press leaks important to judge public and media feedback. Press leaks will help.
•Need for foot over bridge at tambaram west and also extending existing subway in tambaram west which currently ends in west side of railway station to underneath the tambaram railway station to exit at tambaram east side. The FOB will help continuous flow of traffic and signal can be removed for continuous green. Since the signal is very close to flyover it affects flow of traffic. TN Govt must not go and keep asking Railways to share cost but independently do quickly as long time issue of traffic at tambaram and it has been like for decades. At least consider for implementing this low cost idea do get feedback from public. Public generally believe that whenever traffic police is not there the flow of traffic is good. It means they need more good training and scientific methods and drones to understand traffic pattern over weeks to get best solution.
•Need for FOB opposite pothys, T.Nagar for public to cross road. The traffic police has to stop traffic every few minutes for public to cross road. If FOB is there parallel to flyover from Nalli to Saravana store side and traffic police ensures non stop flow of traffic it will reduce traffic blocks. Also have lifts for old and disabled to use FOB more as our people have become lazy to walk on steps. There is not enough space to build FOB like in MEPZ, Sanitorium but a mini FOB to easy flow of traffic will help. It is a simple solution but TN police has so many officer I don’t know what they did for so long. Or did Govt and Chennai corporation did not want to fix issue. The T.Nagar shops pay so much tax and every festive season the traffic jam causes lot of issues. Chennai corporation keeps saying we are going to build flyover to ease traffic but FOB will ease traffic immediately and you will see benefit in long run.
•Do ask govt officials and ministers to leak news on what govt is planning to do on the above issues. Then based on feedback the best solution can be taken up forward. Public would also like to know why above methods were not adopted or even considered for several years now. TN must allow govt officials and ministers to talk out of turn on issues and possible solutions. This will help get feedback to take a good decision. But neither govt officials nor ministers leak any new development projects to any newspaper or media leading to lack of feedback and govt implements something and the public feedback is not considered. So before implementing news leaks will help to get feedback. The govt instead of firing any minister or transferring officials can say like “We have not yet decided it is just a possible thought.”. There is nothing wrong in trying new things. There is nothing wrong in stopping a bad project by feedback. There is nothing wrong in rolling back some changes which have not been beneficial. It is not that any decision has been taken is final. It is not that nobody should make mistakes. It is how fast we correct the mistakes is important. How proactively new methods are adopted. If govt is very confident that it will be success then they should proceed irrespective of the concerns raised in the hope it will benefit thousands of public.
•Newspapers will easily print if officials or lower level staff have contacts with journalists and inform the plans. The journalist will just put as top sources confirmed so no issues. The news leaks methods should be adopted for other long standing issues also.

Railways – Station Development Fee of Rs.50 from 1 A/C, Rs.40 from 2 A/C, Rs. 20 from 3A/C tickets

•Railways must consider implementing fee of Rs.20 on A/C tickets of 3A/C, 40 for 2A/C, 50 for 1 A/C in order to develop railway stations. The amount must be split into 3 for the departure station(30%), the destination station(30%) development and remaining 20% for other stations in the region from departure and 20% for destination region (where DEMU/EMU/passenger trains stop). This funds must not be used for giving salary for Railway staff or normal operations. The funds must be clearly split up by Finance dept.
•This concept of development of railway station will be called crowd funding with help of funds from the rich and upper middle class who travel in A/C classed like A/C sleeper 3AC,2AC,1AC, Chair Car, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, etc,. If you put same Rs.20 it would create problems as politicians will raise issue but for A/C nobody can make any comments. A/C is not affecting poor any way. All tickets booked by  MP & MLA must be charged Rs.50 flat irrespective of class they must contribute to nation building.
•The funds must be separated from the other Railway funds and must be marked for station development and activities identified by consultation with travellers. Mostly these funds can be used for development of stations where the express trains stop. The other stations in which passenger trains stop can be developed with the portion of the funds as the poor use passenger trains only. Express train stops in which most passengers get down can be developed faster with these funds from tickets. Don’t add this charge to sleeper fares to avoid political backlash.
•For example the funds of Rs.20 per seat * 72 (No of seats per Chair Car) * 30 days (roughly 1 trip per day) = Roughly 40,000 per coach. This fund can be put to good use. On average if a train has 3 A/C coaches it will go into lakhs in a month.  Every 3 months funds can be though out on which project can be utilised. Another Example: If you take any train which has sleeper coaches on an average it will have 3 coaches consider 1 for 2A/C 1 or 3A/C the total seats is 110 seats * 20(per seat) * 30 days (roughly 1 per day) = 66,000 per coach. The funds will supplement the usual allocation from Ministry faster.
•The railway IRCTC must be automated to deposit the amount automatically based on the passenger ticket to concerned funds. The funds must be credited daily at end of day to concerned station, region and division. The same must be available for display in online portal for public to see to avoid unwanted repeated RTI. In IRCTC portal also in case booked online must be displayed in the account of the user itself on the money credited.
•Actually this will help faster development of stations in the region instead of Railway minister and ministry saying there is lack of funds year after year to deny public the facilities. And private wont invest in all stations so this concept will development without depending on anyone but crowd sourced by the upper middle class to develop stations. And also we need to go and ask state govt to sign up for JV and other compulsions.
•These funds must be utilised with acceptance of suggestions of MP, MLA, public feedback, Passenger association, Railway unions before implementing any project. The project plan must be put up for public union by press release in the concerned railway authority and through twitter handles. This will lead to transparency. The decision of the Railway authorities will be final but suggestions must be taken and clarified every 3 months before taking decision and the minutes of meeting must be released as press release in concerned authority. Even if decision to wait for more funds to accumulate also must be conveyed if amount is not feasible to use. Since each major station there is a passenger welfare association so discussion will help.
•The facilities which can be implemented with these funds are a) X-Ray Machines b) Hand held scanner devices c) Unreserved ticket booking machines with helper staff to ease crowd at counters and help illiterate to book also d) Cost of deploying security in sensitive areas with CRPF or Army e) Lifts f) Trolleys to carry baggage's from end of platform to another g) Escalators(Important) h) Purified Refillable water near every 2 train coaches i) Wheelchairs j) Retiring Rooms k) Rooms to stay near tourist spots l) Mosquito repellent/killer light in railway premises m) CCTV Cameras n) Free Wi-Fi o) Display TV p) Parking Facility for Bikes & Cars q) LED running display without TV in platform to indicate next train no, destination, coach number r) Dustbins s) New terminal Development t) Platform cleaning devices u) Golf Cart electric vehicles for elderly to travel easily from one platform to another with lifts of larger size for vehicles to also travel v) Fitting of bio-toilets in requested trains  w) Retiring rooms with A/C and good bathroom facilities x) Retiring hotels in major tourist destinations in railway premises with funds accrued over a long time.
•Railways charge very high rates for tatkal but no funds from that where deployed in station deployment. And once in 5 years Railways put one lift or an escalator but the time you put escalators and lifts in all stations and all platforms in express train stops even Kenya will become a developed country. So increase speed of development in the country and also to crowd fund the new method of financing. Please raise platform height of pamban, mandapam camp railway station near Rameswaram to BG height
•We need not go and beg to any funding organisation for our projects. Indians are not poor we are capable of building our country. The compulsions of world bank post loan from them are under lying and Indian economy will suffer by that. Railways taking billions of loans from world bank at high interest rate will affect Indian Economy.