The Western India Passenger Association (WIPA) has written to prime minister Narendra Modi, railway minister Suresh Prabhu and chairman of the standing committee on railways Dinesh Trivedi to ensure that this exercise to speed up trains is successful.
It may finally be time to speed up trains by a few notches across the country. The railway ministry is considering this so that overall more trains can run on a daily basis. The ministry is carrying out a massive revision of rail time-tables nationwide that involves all 17 railway zones to come up with a new schedule, set to be implemented from July 1.
The Western India Passenger Association (WIPA) has written to prime minister Narendra Modi, railway minister Suresh Prabhu and chairman of the standing committee on railways Dinesh Trivedi to ensure that this exercise to speed up trains is successful.
Thomas Simon of the WIPA explained: "It is time that trains are speeded up so that there is a chance of running more trains. In several cases the time table of trains is almost 30 years old with just minor changes that save a negligible five to ten minutes. These changes have to be done at the highest level hence we have written to the PM and others."
Citing the example of the schedule for 16381/16382 CST-Kanyakumari Jyanati Janata Express, Simon said: "The train takes between 44 hours 15 minutes and 45 hours 30 minutes to cover the 2,136 kilometre route. This means that the train runs at a speed of 48 kilometres per hour. However, the speed sanctioned by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) is 105 kmph to 110 kmph. Our studies show that this train can be speeded up by anything between 8 hours to 11 hours. Imagine what a difference it would make."
Another demand the WIPA has made to the powers-that-be is to give new speed challenges to various categories of trains being run by the railways. The demand includes setting the average speed of an express train at 60 kmph, a super fast train at 70 kmph, the Rajdhani at 80 kmph and the Duronto at 85kmph. Incidentally, the average speed of a superfast train in India is 55 kmph, a speed limit set several years ago.
The exercise
The exercise is a huge one with officials of all 17 railway zones and the Konkan Railway deliberating on how best to run trains in the shortest possible time. Authorities are trying to ensure that no train ends up slowing another since it would have a cascading effect nationwide. The deliberations are on train timings (as per passenger demands), and train speeds (as per operational and technical specifications), and also the introduction of more trains on a particular path.
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