The Hindu : New Delhi News : Pre-feasibility study planned for high-speed trains

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Friday, Jan 04, 2008
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Pre-feasibility study planned for high-speed trains

Staff Reporter

Japan has offered assistance for dedicated freight corridor project: Velu

COIMBATORE: The Railway Ministry will conduct a pre-feasibility survey to find out the potential of States that have expressed interest in operating high-speed trains, Minister of State for Railways R. Velu said on Wednesday.

Talking to reporters here, he said Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal had responded positively to the Centre’s plan, laid out in the last budget, for running high-speed trains.

The Ministry was dividing the country into four regions—south, east, north and west—for undertaking a pre-feasibility study before conducting a full-fledged feasibility study. The Tamil Nadu Government, he said, had planned to run such trains between Chennai and Coimbatore, and Madurai. The other States had suggested probable routes.

Industrial parks

The Japanese Government had offered assistance for the dedicated freight corridor project (from Delhi to Mumbai and Ludhiana to Kolkata), which would help to ease the pressure on the mixed routes that carried the passenger as well as freight traffic.

The dedicated corridors, he reckoned, would help in formation of industrial parks along the routes. The work on launching a Special Purpose Vehicle for the project was on. In the second stage of the project, freight corridors would be laid on the Chennai-Goa, Chennai-Kolkata, Chennai-Delhi and Mumbai-Kolkata sectors.

The electrification and track doubling of the Wadi-Guntakkal section would reduce the travel time between Chennai and Mumbai.

As for introduction of an additional train from Coimbatore to Chennai through Vriddhachalam, since the Salem-Vriddhachalam section was opened for traffic recently, Mr. Velu said the coming budget would propose an overnight train between Chennai and Salem through Vriddachalam, but because of the constraint of a single line between Vridddachalam and Villupuram, the timings had to be adjusted. The same problem was being faced in the Salem-Coimbatore section.

He was confident of flagging off the Coimbatore-Nagercoil overnight express (announced in the last budget) by this month-end.

The Salem Railway Division proposed to run an overnight express from Coimbatore to Bangalore and an express from Coimbatore to Tirupati, and extend the Tiruvananthapuram–Palakkad Express to Mettuppalayam, and these proposals would materialise shortly, he said.

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