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    Southern Railway identifies 3 routes from Chennai for Vande Metro operations

    On the status of the fourth line between Chennai Beach and Egmore, which was hit by the Reserve Bank of India’s reluctance to hand over land to the Railways, the reticent AGM who refused to take further queries said that the decks have been cleared and the new fourth line would be opened for traffic in a couple of months.

    Southern Railway identifies 3 routes from Chennai for Vande Metro operations
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     Vande Metro train

    CHENNAI: Officials of Southern Railway (SR) have identified three major routes for operating the city’s maiden Vande Metro train, said Kaushal Kishore, additional general manager of Southern Railway here on Monday.

    Addressing media persons at the customary post-budget presser organised to brief the budgetary allocation for Railways with special reference to Tamil Nadu, Kaushal Kishore disclosed that they have identified Chennai-Gudur, Chennai-Villupuram and Chennai-Jolarpet as three sections having high demand with potential for operating Vande Metro trains.

    Asked to specify the most viable route for Vande Metro operation, the AGM said that they were in the process of studying the feasibility at the moment and the route would be decided upon arrival of the rakes. It may be recalled that a trial run of the fully air-conditioned 12-car train, a variant of Vande Bharat designed and produced by ICF to suit operation between cities located close to each other, was conducted between Chennai and Walajah Road in August 2024.

    On the status of the fourth line between Chennai Beach and Egmore, which was hit by the Reserve Bank of India’s reluctance to hand over land to the Railways, the reticent AGM who refused to take further queries said that the decks have been cleared and the new fourth line would be opened for traffic in a couple of months.

    Record Rs 6,626 cr allocation for TN: Vaishnaw

    Earlier, in a zone-wise interaction with media persons on the budgetary allocation made for Railways, Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said virtually from the national capital that a record Rs 6,626 crore has been allocated to Tamil Nadu for rail development projects. Drawing a parallel between the sum and the budgetary allocation made during the UPA tenures (Rs 879 crore), Vaishnaw said the amount was 7.5 times more than the allocation Tamil Nadu used to get in the UPA tenure.

    1,300 km of tracks constructed in TN, more than entire network of Sri Lanka: Vaishnaw

    Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that about 1,300 km of tracks have been constructed in Tamil Nadu since 2014, which is more than the entire network of Sri Lanka.

    The minister also said that a whopping Rs 1.16 lakh crore has been allocated in the budget for the safety infrastructure of Indian Railways. Blaming the state government for the slow progress of railway projects in the State, the Union minister said that only 25 per cent of the 3,389 hectares of land required for various projects have been acquired by the Tamil Nadu government and the support of the state government was required to complete the projects.

    To a specific query on the extent of Kavach coverage in the State, the union railway minister said that works were underway on 601 route kilometres of works for the commissioning of Kavach Safety systems out of the total sanctioned 1,460 RKM works in Tamil Nadu. Likewise, in Kerala, works are in progress on 107 route km for commissioning Kavach Safety systems out of the sanctioned 531 route km.

    DTNEXT Bureau
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