The Hindu : Front Page : Shencottah-Punalur railway section to be redesigned: General Manager

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Friday, Jan 25, 2008
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Shencottah-Punalur railway section to be redesigned: General Manager

Special Correspondent

MADURAI: The Shencottah-Punalur ghat section that has deep curves and tunnels will be redesigned to lay broad gauge tracks, Southern Railway General Manager, Rakesh Chopra, has said.

After inspecting gauge conversion works in the Tenkasi-Shencottah section in Madurai division, he told reporters here on Thursday that steps would be taken to ease the sharp curves between Shencottah and Punalur. Modifications would be made in the tunnels to accommodate BG rolling stock. (The section is part of the Virudhunagar-Tenkasi-Tirunelveli/Tiruchendur-Kollam (357) guage conversion project sanctioned in 1997-98.)

Mr. Chopra said the estimate for gauge conversion between Virudhunagar and Manamadurai was sanctioned. The 64-km section would provide an alternative route to Chennai from the south and also ease the bottleneck between Madurai and Virudhunagar.

The double BG line between Dindigul and Madurai would be ready by June.

The Manamadurai-Karaikudi gauge conversion was in an advanced stage of completion.

No move to close Goldenrock workshop

He said there was no move to close down the Goldenrock Workshop at Tiruchi. “It is a golden workshop….They do more than just maintaining meter gauge locomotives.” The Southern Railway had operated maximum number of special trains this year (2007-08).

The General Manager was accompanied by a high-level team, including the Chief Administrative Officer, R. Ramanathan, Chief Operations Manager, Abraham Jacob, Divisional Railway Manager, Hemant Kumar, among others, railway sources said.

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