THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
A Pan India safety drive is launched by Railway Board to meet the new higher standards of safety and to improve asset reliability.
Trivandrum division has taken up the drive on a mission mode to ensure safety in train operation. As a part of this 180 kilometers of track comprising of rails and sleepers are targeted to be replaced in the current financial year.
There are other maintenance works of various assets also carried out simultaneously. 70% of the proposed work is concentrated in Shoranur-Ernakulam and Kayamkulam-Trivandrum section and 20% is in Kottayam single line section.
Heavy deployment of man power, material and heavy machinery are done to speed up the work. Regulation, rescheduling and partial cancellation of trains are essential for carrying out the works safely. The maintenance works entail slowing of the trains passing through the section for safety reasons. All efforts are taken to reduce inconvenience of daily commuters by planning most of the works during night time and avoiding morning and evening commuter train timings.
However, due to peculiarities of the division often the repercussions are continuous by way of regular delays such as;
a) Additional temporary stoppages outside the set time table, given for various highly patronized trains, have eliminated all recovery times to make up lost time.
b) Due to geographical location of the division, most of the trains traverse the entire length of the division carrying forward the detention already suffered.
c) The trains are detained further due to patches of single line sections at Alappuzha and Kottayam section.
d) For serving Sabarimala pilgrims additional trains are introduced in the single line Kottayam section affecting the regular trains further.
e) Ongoing doubling works has also necessitated imposition of speed restrictions in the Kottayam sector.
As safety is of paramount importance in train operation, despite these constraints, railway is determined to carry out and complete the safety augmentation works. There will be detention to trains in Shoranur-Ernakulam section between 10 am to 4 pm and overall slowing down in other sections due to speed restrictions. Temporary changes in timings of highly patronized trains to maintain punctuality in their most highly patronized section is also examined to reduce commuter inconvenience to the extent possible. A detailed passenger census has already been organized in the division this week.
