Ahead of seasonal rush, Madurai trains to get more coaches

Speaking to DTNext, an official from Southern Railway (Madurai) said there has been a steady increase in passenger traffic. “It is more than 7 percent a year and it is increasingly becoming tough to manage passenger traffic even when special trains are operated,” he said. As a viable option, Southern Railway has decided to add more coaches in eight of the trains starting from southern districts on a permanent basis, he added. 

However, the addition of coaches will be carried out only in weekly, bi-weekly and tri-weekly trains and not on the regular trains. Officials also said the extra bogies would be added to the trains on different dates, from Friday till next Sunday, September 4. The type of coaches added in each of these trains will be calculated based on the demand from passengers. Trains with more waitlisted passengers would get priority, said sources. 

A first A/C coach has been added to the bi-weekly Chennai Egmore-Manamadurai Silambu express. Similarly, a first A/C coach and a twotier A/C coach have been added on the Rameswaram-Okhla express. 

To cater to the rush, a two-tier A/C coach has been added on the bi-weekly, Kanniyakumari-Hazrat Nizamuddin Tirukural express, which passes via Chennai Egmore. Officials also said a two-tier A/C coach has been added on the weekly, Nagercoil-Kacheguda express. A permanent sleeper coach has been added to the tri-weekly Rameswaram-Tirupathi express,  the weekly Rameshwaram-Coimbatore express, the tri-weekly Rameswaram-Kanniyakumari express and the weekly  Tirunelveli-Dadar express, said officials.