NE NEWS SERVICE
TIRUCHIRAPALLI, DEC 20
Doubling work of rail line between Madurai-Nagercoil-Thiruvananthapuram will be over by December 2021 or latest by March 2022, said Southern Railway General Manager John Thomas here on Friday.
The General Manager, who inspected the Vriddhachalam – Tiruchi chord line section travelling in special train told reporters at Tiruchi Junction that Chennai- Madurai section had been doubled and it would be extended up to Thiruvananthapuram via Nagercoil.
He said that the rail network in the entire Southern Railway zone would be fully electrified by December 2022. There would be no section in the Southern Railway zone after 2022 which would not have been electrified.
Level-crossings on way out
John Thomas said the Southern Railway was proceeding in the direction of eliminating all manned railway gates also. Level crossings were planned to be removed latest by December 2022 after which no gateman would be required.
All unmanned level crossings in the Southern Railway had been eliminated in March 2019. The next step was to remove the manned level crossing gates, he said adding that this year the Southern Railway had planned to remove 148 gates out of which 60 had been eliminated. The plan was to remove the remaining level crossings in the next three years.
He said as per Railway Ministry’s instructions all stations over the Southern Railway zone in three to four years would have high level platforms and foot over bridges. “We are also going to provide escalators and lifts at stations based on passenger footfalls”.
The Southern Railway would initially provide escalators only at stations having more than one lakh passenger footfalls in a day. Once this was covered the next step of providing escalators and lifts would be taken up in stations with 25,000 passenger footfalls and above, he added.
John Thomas inspected the station redevelopment works undertaken at Tiruchi Junction along with higher officials of the Southern Railway and accompanied by Tiruchi Divisional Railway officials. Before arriving at Tiruchi Junction, the General Manager begun the inspection travelling in a special train from Vriddhachalam after inspecting the station besides also inspecting Ariyalur and Srirangam railway stations.
