Kochi: Count on the Indian Railways to sabotage its own promises. The authorities have regularized the inordinate delays in train arrivals by tweaking the timetable accordingly.
Trains running between Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram just got slower, officially, according to the latest timetable published in November. This goes against a previous assurance to speed up trains to do away with the delays.
The trains are painfully slow even in stretches with double lines thanks to a strategically implemented speed control. The trains could run as fast as 105 kilometers on several of these stretches. Oddly enough, the trains resume their speed once they cross over to the Palakkad division.
Most of the trains have been slowed down on the Kottayam route. They start at the same time from Thiruvananthapuram but reach the stations after Kollam 15 to 30 minutes behind the earlier schedule.
Long distance trains such as Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram Mail and Jayanthi Janata will now take more time to reach Kollam from Ernakulam. The railway division has blown its chance to gain more trains in the sector by reducing the running time of existing services.
As a consolation, a few trains to the south has been sped up by 5 to 10 minutes.
Schedules for the trains relied upon by hundreds of office-goers and students, including the Venad Express, Parasuram Express, Sabari Express, Kerala Express, Bengaluru Express, Chennai Mail and Chennai Super, have been changed.
Though the running time between Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam is an hour on average, some of the trains have been given additional time to cover the distance. The 12696 Chennai Super will now take an hour and 10 minutes to reach Kollam, compared to the earlier 57 minutes.
The strangest of all changes is the grace time allotted for trains to run between Thiruvananthapruam Central and Petta, hardly 2 kilometers away, and between Ernakulam Town and Tripunithura. The superfast train can run the 25 kilometers from Kottayam to Vaikom in 20 minutes but will take an hour to reach Ernakulam, which is 34 kilometers away from Vaikom.
Most of the trains have been given 10 minutes extra to ply between Kollam and Kayamkulam, resulting in painfully slow speeds between Kottayam and Kollam.
The running time between Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam is four hours via Alappuzha and four and a half hours via Kottayam.
The new timetable reflects the inefficiency in the railway division. The Thiruvananthapuram-Shornur Venad Express has run on time only one day between October 20 and November 20. The lifeline was delayed by at least half an hour on all days but November 7 in the last one month.
The train could not even stick to the relaxed time schedule that requires it to reach Ernakulam at 10:10 am.
Though trains are perennially late in Kerala, the Railway Board does not seem to be aware of the lapse as the members of Parliament representing the state are yet to act on the complaints.
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