Chennai: Southern Railway has announced that 1,269 special trains have been operated so far this year to clear extra rush. This is an improvement of 16 per cent over last year, it said.
Southern Railway General Manager R K Kulshrestha conducted a meeting with members of Parliament from Chennai and Salem at Southern Railway Headquarters Office recently and discussed ongoing railway works.
Some development works that were highlighted during the meeting were about the addition of 12 car EMU upto Arakkonam, Tiruttani and Gummidipundi to increase the passenger carrying capacity.
The Southern Railway is also said to have introduced four new cross sector services from Chengalpattu to Gummidipundi in addition to already engaged cross sector services from Velachery to Arakkonam and Chennai Beach to Gummidipundi.
Railway source also reported that a major yard remodeling have been done at Arakkonam. A drive recently launched by Southern Railway to revamp all the existing toilets under SwachhPakhwada in addition to large scale cleaning dive at all stations was also discussed among many other list of ongoing projects.
The MPs present at the meeting requested Southern Railway to complete projects, enhance passenger amenities at stations and provision of stoppages of trains in their respective constituencies.
The General Manager informed the issues will be examined case by case, and efforts will be taken to take up the works requested within the Zonal Railway purview. The issues that are beyond Zonal Railway’s purview will be brought to the notice of Railway Board for consideration, he said.
The meeting saw the participation of Divisional Railway Manager, Chennai Division Naveen Gulati, along with Divisional Railway Manager, Salem Division, U Subba Rao, and Principal Heads of Departments of Southern Railway and Chennai and Salem Divisional Officers.