The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : High-capacity coaches soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 04, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

High-capacity coaches soon

S. Anil Radhakrishnan

Railways plan more coaches in high-occupancy trains

High-capacity sleeper coach has 9 berths more
18 trains to be made 24-coach trains this year

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As a short-term measure to address the travelling needs of commuters, Southern Railway will be introducing high-capacity coaches for popular trains in a phased manner.

Southern Railway already has seven rakes with high-capacity coaches. A high-capacity sleeper class coach has 81 berths as against 72 in an ordinary sleeper coach.

There are 72 berths for a high-capacity AC 3-tier coach while the ordinary one has 64. AC 2-tier and First AC high-capacity coaches can accommodate an additional two and four berths respectively.

According to Railways, the long-term objective is to increase the number of coaches in high-occupancy mail/express trains to 24 and in high-occupancy passenger trains to 15.

Growth in traffic

The growth in the passenger traffic for Southern Railway has been in the range of 10 to 11 per cent in the last three years.

To cope with the growth, Railways have taken steps to augment the number of coaches.

In 2005-06, Railways added 47 coaches to its trains, an additional 77 coaches to 24 pairs of trains in 2006-07 and 176 coaches to 45 pairs of trains in 2007-2008. Southern Railway is hoping to turn another 18 trains into 24-coach trains this year.

Indents for additional coaches have already been placed with the Railway Board.

Railways have also taken into account the number of coaches that will be needed after the completion of gauge conversion works and introduction of the new trains announced in the Railway budget.

Over and above permanent augmentations, Railways have already added 2,598 coaches based on daily demands in various trains.

There has been an improvement in the punctuality of mail/express trains under Southern Railway compared to last year.

As against 95 per cent punctuality in June 2007, Southern Railway achieved 97.3 per cent punctuality in June this year.

Railways achieved 98.4 per cent punctuality in July this year as against 94 per cent during the same period last year.

This has been made possible by increased reliability of assets, upgrading of maximum permissible speed to 110 kmph on several stretches and increase in the number of high-power locomotives.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala