Express News Service By

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Western India Passengers’ Association based in Mumbai, with chapters at Pune, Palakkad and Tiruvalla, has demanded a comprehensive and substantial revision of Railway timetable across India as most trains run at a much lower speeds than the stipulated and CRS (Commissioner of Railway Safety)-sanctioned maximum speed limits, which in most sectors are 110 / 105 / 95 kmph (kilometers per hour).

The association said that apart from causing inconvenience and losses to passengers, such slow-moving trains eat up scarce ‘Paths’ (a particular time slot along the entire route), resulting in inability to operate more trains on that route. This is one of the main reasons that passenger operations in Railways are running at a heavy loss amounting to Rs 26,000 crore per annum, which is made up from freight revenue.

The association said that though the above sections have witnessed huge doubling work, the trains are not speeded up at the required rate for a long time. A total of 1409 km of lines on the Jayanti Janata Express route has been converted to double lines in the last few years.

‘’Similarly, a total of 313 km of lines have been doubled from Mangalore junction to Shornur junction. These lines and traction improvements have not resulted in increased running speeds for trains. The association has been raising the issue of speeding up 16381 / 16382 Mumbai - Kanyakumari Jayanti Janata Express for the past few years. This is the first direct train from Mumbai to Kerala, which commenced operation on January 26, 1976, to Cochin Harbour Terminus and later got extended to Kanyakumari via Thiruvananthapuram in 1998 after the introduction of Netravati Express via Konkan Railway,’’ the association said.

The train 16381 CST Mumbai - Kanyakumari Express is running at a snail’s pace with an average running speed of 48 kmph via Pune, Guntakal, Salem, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram, taking 44.15 hours to reach its destination and 45.30 hours on its return journey, involving 2 nights. This train is still running on a schedule prepared 30 years back. Though most passengers from Mumbai do not prefer to travel by this train, this is the only daily train connecting Mumbai and Pune to Palakkad.

‘’In spite of several demands to speed up this train in the last decade as several hundreds of km of rail lines have been doubled en route, Southern Railway, especially Trivandrum Division, has not shown any willingness to revise the timings,’’ the association said.

This train gets detained at several stations between Pune and Salem as the train reaches up to 30 minutes before schedule, as it cannot leave before the published scheduled time of departure.Though 1409 km of rail lines have been doubled in the last three decadesi, Southern Railway is unwilling to speed up the train till now.