Trains late? South Railway fixes glitches, puts services back on track
Siddharth Prabhakar | TNN | Jan 19, 2019, 06:16 IST
Representative image CHENNAI: Catalysed by a series of news reports and rapped by the Railway Board, Southern Railway has, over the past few months, embarked on a major drive to analyse the drop in punctuality of passenger trains across Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and correct the shortcomings.
Southern Railway’s operations department found that poor quality of tracks in southern Kerala, rake-links, delayed start at terminal stations as well as permanent speed restrictions were areas that could be worked upon to better punctuality.
After some changes were made in the said areas, the punctuality figures improved by 5% points in December 2018 over the same month last year, official statistics sourced by TOI show. This has also ensured a 50% increase in trains reaching their destinations ahead of time.
Sources said officials from the operations department were closely monitoring trains which perform poorly on a weekly basis, keeping track of the departure time of trains the at originating stations. “A train that starts on time solves half the punctuality problem,” said an official.
Sources said a massive track renewal work was carried out in Kerala to improve the quality of tracks, and that it had helped improve service of a many trains bound to Chennai from Kerala. “This has helped us lift permanent speed restrictions on the section,” said an official.
The zone has also started upgrading trains with WAP7 locomotives, as the engines accelerate faster to reach the maximum speed of 120kmph.
In some cases, officials found that a delayed train was affecting the departure of another train which had the same rake.
“The system was streamlined to have easy interchangeability. All rakes were made of the same combination,” the official said. Nellai and Pothigai Expresses were two trains which benefited from this.
Sridhar Joshi, a rail-fan, said these were welcome changes and that the vast engineering work to improve track strength was paying off.
S Prabhu, a rail blogger, said that due to doubling on the Chennai-Madurai route, many trains were running faster and arriving ahead of schedule. “The travel duration allotted in the time-table is more than what the trains need. The duration can be cut by at least half an hour,” he said, when told about the improved punctuality.
Southern Railway’s operations department found that poor quality of tracks in southern Kerala, rake-links, delayed start at terminal stations as well as permanent speed restrictions were areas that could be worked upon to better punctuality.
After some changes were made in the said areas, the punctuality figures improved by 5% points in December 2018 over the same month last year, official statistics sourced by TOI show. This has also ensured a 50% increase in trains reaching their destinations ahead of time.
Sources said officials from the operations department were closely monitoring trains which perform poorly on a weekly basis, keeping track of the departure time of trains the at originating stations. “A train that starts on time solves half the punctuality problem,” said an official.
Sources said a massive track renewal work was carried out in Kerala to improve the quality of tracks, and that it had helped improve service of a many trains bound to Chennai from Kerala. “This has helped us lift permanent speed restrictions on the section,” said an official.
The zone has also started upgrading trains with WAP7 locomotives, as the engines accelerate faster to reach the maximum speed of 120kmph.
In some cases, officials found that a delayed train was affecting the departure of another train which had the same rake.
“The system was streamlined to have easy interchangeability. All rakes were made of the same combination,” the official said. Nellai and Pothigai Expresses were two trains which benefited from this.
Sridhar Joshi, a rail-fan, said these were welcome changes and that the vast engineering work to improve track strength was paying off.
S Prabhu, a rail blogger, said that due to doubling on the Chennai-Madurai route, many trains were running faster and arriving ahead of schedule. “The travel duration allotted in the time-table is more than what the trains need. The duration can be cut by at least half an hour,” he said, when told about the improved punctuality.
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