The project to build a fourth railway line between Chennai Beach and Egmore stations is in jeopardy as the Southern Railway is facing difficulties in acquiring the necessary land. This line is crucial to increase the frequency of long-distance and freight trains.
At present, there are three lines between Chennai Beach and Chennai Egmore. Of these, two are dedicated to suburban trains serving lakhs of commuters. The third track is utilised to run long-distance mail/express trains and freight trains and it functions as a single line. With the announcement of a third coaching terminal at Tambaram to meet the growing demand of passenger traffic, having a fourth line between Chennai Beach and Chennai Egmore becomes critical to improve train operations and to introduce more trains that are likely to originate from Tambaram terminal. There are already four lines between Egmore and Tambaram.
The Railway Board had sanctioned ₹279.8 crore after Southern Railway had highlighted the importance of this critical stretch and had fixed a deadline for completing the project by the end of this financial year. It had taken up an alignment study for the fourth line involving minimal acquisition of land. Of the total land identified, 250 square metres of land belongs to the RBI land and 2,875 square metres of land along the Cooum belongs to the State government.
