Salem News : Arch:0008 Sources : The Hindu Salem Railway Division tops in energy conservation Salem Steel City Salem division has topped in energy conservation among the six divisions of Southern Railway, said General Manager (GM) of Southern Railway Rakesh Misra here. Chennai, Tiruchi, Madurai, Trivandrum, Palakkad and Salem comprise the Southern Railway. Mr. Misra was addressing journalists after inaugurating the Supervisor’s Rest House here on Tuesday. The GM said that the most important role of Salem Division was to ensure the movement of coal on the Salem-Mettur sector. “This is important because Mettur is a major power production hub for Tamil Nadu. Performance of the division is satisfactory and it is expected to perform better,” he added. Regarding the doubling of the Mettur rail route, he said it could take some time for the commencement of the project. “Though funds have been allotted for the project in the budget, we are waiting for funds,” he said. “Steps were also under way to commence the train service on the Salem-Karur stretch via Namakkal. We are in the process of mobilising coaches for the train,” he said and hinted that this train could be launched by the end of the month. Responding to a query on filling up of hundreds of vacancies in Southern Railway, Mr. Misra said that there was no recruitment in the Group C and D categories for the last two years. He added that recruitment has resumed recently and that the vacancies would be filled up very soon. Meanwhile in Coimbatore, Mr. Misra said that “routing or re-routing of trains were not within his powers.” Mr. Misra made this observation even as the Coimbatore Railway Struggle Committee was keen to make an appeal for more trains being routed via Coimbatore instead of running them via the Irugur — Podanur section. Talking to The Hindu , Mr. Misra said that based on the demands of the Committee and the growing needs of the passengers in the region, already five pairs of trains had been routed via Coimbatore. Recommendation “To the extent possible, the Zonal Railway will recommend to the Railway Board the need for routing more trains via Coimbatore”, he added. “At present, 35 pairs of trains were run via Coimbatore and the Coimbatore — Irugur — Podanur triangle was a saturated section. At present, there are three trains passing through the Coimbatore — Coimbatore North — Irugur section in one hour. Only eight pairs of trains skip Coimbatore Junction and were being run via Irugur — Coimbatore section and of them, seven trains stop at Podanur Junction which is hardly eight km away from the city,” he said. To route the remaining trains, the trains required 28 minutes of additional running time besides the three to four minutes for deceleration, stoppage and acceleration. The running speed of trains at present between Coimbatore and Podanur was 90 km per hour and Coimbatore — Irugur is 70 km per hour. Asked about the need for a daily overnight express train from Coimbatore to Bangalore, Mr. Misra said the demand was genuine as there was enough passenger traffic. All Bangalore-bound passengers from Coimbatore could not be accommodated in the passing-through trains because of quota constraints. Mr. Misra told the Divisional Railway Manager — Salem, Sujatha Jeyaraj to pursue the proposal for introduction of an overnight daily express train on the Coimbatore — Bangalore — Coimbatore section. With regard to the recently introduced Coimbatore — Rameswaram — Coimbatore weekly express running to capacity, Mr. Misra said increasing the frequency of the train would take some more time as Railways normally wait for passenger density to stabilise in newly introduced trains with lesser frequency. On passenger amenities, Mr. Misra said the ongoing works for installation of four escalators and four lifts for the benefit of the aged, ailing and differently abled persons at Coimbatore Junction will be put to use before the end of 2013. He also added that the project for electrification of the 40 km odd Coimbatore — Mettupalayam section would commence soon.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 02:39:56 +0000
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