ALLAHABAD: Four trains, presently operating from
Allahabad Junction would soon be operating from Prayag (a station under northern railway) station of the city.
This was approved in a meeting held between the chairman railway board (CRB),
Ashwini Lohani with general managers (GM) of all the railway zones of the country. Held via videoconferencing, the chairman inquired about the punctuality of mail and express trains in the
railway network of the nation.
While speaking at the all-important meeting, GM NCR, MC Chauhan raised the matter of shifting four trains—Nauchandi, Saryu, Aallahabad-Jaunpur Passenger, and Ganga-Gomti express—to Prayag from Allahabad Junction. This was accepted by the railway board and it was decided that the shifting would be done once the Prayag Ghat station of Northern Railway (NR) had been developed, informed
Chief public relation officer (CPRO), NCR, G K Bansal.
He further informed that to further improve the punctuality of trains, the GM also requested the railway board to shift some goods trains from the oversaturated A-Route (Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai) of NCR to the ‘B’route of NR (Lucknow-Sultanpur-Varanasi) which was completely electrified and had been made double line also.
Chauhan also said that in order to improve punctuality, the speed potential of Seven pairs of trains running on the system of NCR has been increased to 130km/h from 110km/h. He said that hourly monitoring of punctuality is being done in NCR and 60 trains are being monitored at the level of GM. He requested the board to provide approval for upgrading of speed potential of 29 pairs of non-airconditioned trains with
LHB coaches from existing 110km/h to 130km/h, in order to free up sectional line-capacity and help to improve punctuality.
The chairman, while talking on the subject of punctuality, said that along with continued focus on maintenance, there is a pressing need to improve punctuality of trains. He advised that in order to improve punctuality, asset failures will have to be controlled and maintenance blocks cleared within the time allocated for the same. He said in view of more blocks of longer duration that are being given now, it is crucial that ‘block bursting’ does not take place.
"We will have to put in our 100% efforts to meet the twin challenges of maintenance & infrastructure development along with improvement in punctuality” said the CRB.