NE NEWS SERVICE
TIRUNELVELI, MAY 14
Tirunelveli MP on Saturday urged the Southern Railway General Manager to to operate Clone Humsafar express daily special train between Chennai and Kanniyakumari to meet the higher demand of passengers.
“The Indian Railways is operating clone trains or duplicate trains on high demand routes. Due to strong demand for tickets on a particular route, a clone train is run on the same route as the original train. Other railway Zone’s are operating many clone trains. But Southern Railway is not operating any clone trains particularly in Chennai – Kanniyakumari route. I am surprised to see that any clone train in this Chennai – Kanniyakumari route is not operated,” S Gnanathiraviam, Member of Parliament, Tirunelveli Parliamentary Constituency, said in his demand letter.
The letter further stated that “there is no dedicated Humsafar express for southern railway operated train exclusively within Tamil Nadu state. In south Tamil Nadu one or two weekly Humsafar express trains are operated. In fact these trains are even maintained by the other Zone’s. We don’t have any dedicated Southern Railway owned/ maintained Humsafar train for the benefit of south Tamil Nadu passengers. In addition, there are no premium trains like Rajdhani Express, Jan Shatabdi, Garib Rath and Shatabdi, Uday, and Vande Bharat operated from/for the entire southern part of Tamil Nadu.”
The MP has urged the GM to operate a clone daily special Humsafar express between Chennai and Kanniyakumari via Tirunelveli and Madurai, Tiruchi and Villupuram route. This daily Humsafar train may start from Kanniyakumari after 8:30 pm and reach Chennai early morning around 6:00 hours. In return direction it may start from Chennai Tambaram at 9:00 pm and reach Kanniyakumari at 7:00 am.
Demand for AC coaches high during summer
Due to the hot weather summer months, people in Tamil Nadu prefer to travel in AC coaches with ready to pay high ticket fare and railways will get more revenue. If you operate short time special it will not reach to common people and railways will not get enough occupancy. We request you to operate the Humsafar clone train as a special train service for at least six-month period. After studying the revenue, occupancy, passenger benefit etc….we can consider regularizing the special as daily Humsafar train service, the MP suggested.
According to the MP, the General Manager, Southern Railway has full powers regarding operation of special trains. So in the larger interest of the passengers, I request the General Manager, Southern Railway to consider this demand earnestly and do the needful as soon as possible.
