The Southern Railway must augment MEMU services, speed up track-doubling through Alappuzha, introduce automatic signalling and add more general and de-reserved coaches in trains, in order to lessen commuting woes in the State, passenger associations have demanded, ahead of the meeting between Southern Railway General Manager R.N. Singh and MPs from Kerala during the weekend.
More MEMU trains during peak hours and replacement of short-distance passenger trains with MEMU rakes would bring some relief to commuters who were forced to travel in crammed general coaches of trains such as Parasuram Express, said Liyons J., secretary of Friends on Rails, a conclave of daily commuters from Kollam and Alappuzha. The demand gains relevance since instances of commuters fainting in crammed coaches has become a regular occurrence.
The Railway must also reduce the running time of trains by introduction of automatic signalling system. A MEMU service must be introduced in the Kollam-Palakkad corridor, while MEMU sheds at either end must be developed to host 16-coach MEMU rakes. The Railway ought to revisit the running time of the Vande Bharat train through Alappuzha, so that it did not delay other trains. It must also operate a train in the Thiruvananthapuram-Kozhikode route after 10 p.m. Travel concession to senior citizens must be restored, he said.
The Kottayam Rail Users’ Forum has, meanwhile, in a letter sent to Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, demanded steps to introduce more trains through Kottayam, citing how there were few unreserved trains from there to northern districts after Sabari Express left the station at 9.40 a.m. “This prompts unreserved commuters to rely on long-distance express trains which have limited number of general coaches and are hence crammed. This situation can be improved if a few trains such as Palakkad-Ernakulam MEMU and Bengaluru-Ernakulam Inter City Express that terminated at Ernakulam, are extended up to Kottayam where many platforms are underutilised,” said Gireesh Babu of the forum.
It also demanded conversion of the Mumbai-Kochuveli Superfast Express as a daily train, construction of more pit lines and readying of a coaching terminal that had been sanctioned in 2011 in Kottayam, after shifting the goods shed there to nearby Chingavanam or Ettumanoor.
Rail passengers have of late also been demanding speedy completion of phase two of Nemom terminal, a coaching terminal at over 100 acres of underutilised Railway land at the marshalling yard in Ernakulam, extending the length of four of the six platforms at Ernakulam Junction to host trains having 24 coaches and one more platform at Ernakulam Town. Their other demands include realising of the Angamaly-Erumeli Sabari line and a Vande Bharat sleeper train to Bengaluru.
Thomas Simon, general secretary of Mumbai-based Western India Passengers’ Association, sought speedy measures to extend the Madgaon-Mangaluru Vande Bharat Express that had inadequate patronage to Ernakulam, introducing more trains to Mumbai, and readying of automatic coach-washing units at Kochuveli and Ernakulam Junction.
