Some battles are won, with a minimum of sweat. A signature campaign involving just 69 regular commuters of the Chennai Beach-Arakkonam line, sent on August 1 this year, caught the attention of the Southern Railway officials. The problem they had highlighted was attended to, on November 1. They had complained about the lack of train services during lean hours on the route and sought extension of local services. The Southern Railway extended a suburban service, originally operated from Beach to Chennai Central, up to Tiruvallur. Apart from extension of services, the number of cars has also been increased from eight to 12. With this extension, commuters of more than 20 stations from Chennai Central to Tiruvallur will be benefited.
The team was led by S. Venugopal, an advocate at the Madras High Court, and D. Devandra Kumar, who is with a private shipping agency in Broadway. The two have been fighting for nearly a decade for getting an additional service during lean hours.
Once, the waiting time during a lean hour became unbearable, and the two decided to garner the support of other commuters and put forth this demand, separately. “Earlier, we listed all our demands in a single petition. The demand was sidelined because it involved more time and funds. Realising that our efforts were futile, we changed our approach. We sought extension of an existing service,” Devandra Kumar, the petitioner and long-time resident of Padi, said. Earlier, everyday commuting to his Broadway office was a nightmare for Kumar. For, he would take his motorcycle to Korattur station, the nearest from Padi, and from there take a train to the Villivakkam station.
From Villivakkam, he would again board Chennai Beach-Arakkonam Fast, a service that does not halt at all stations. Not only Kumar, many other commuters from adjoining neighbourhoods such as Padi, Kolathur, Anna Nagar, Retteri, ICF, Puzhal and Korattur prefer to board fast trains from Villivakkam station because they can avoid the waiting time during lean hours.
Fortunately, with the extension of services from November 1, the train halts at all stations between Chennai Beach and Tiruvallur. Earlier, there was no local train from the Beach station to Tiruvallur between 3.30 p.m. and 5.22 p.m. However, after the extension, one service is being operated at 4.40 p.m. from the Beach station every day.
“We appreciate the Southern Railway in meeting the demands of commuters. When the demand was presented to them in a collective manner through a signature campaign and petitions, they responded quickly,” S. Venugopal, co-petitioner, said.
Fact-sheet
* Between Beach and Tiruvallur, Southern Railway operates 38 Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs) with nine cars and 11 Main Electrical Multiple Units (MEMUs) with eight cars
* Every day, on an average, over four lakh passengers commute between Arakkonam and Beach (including from Central station)
* The Chennai Beach-Tambaram service carries around 5.6 lakh commuters per day
* Frequency of local trains between the two routes is low. On an average, a local train is operated once in 10 minutes on the Tambaram route while on the Central station line, there is one service every 20 minutes
* For areas beyond Tiruvallur, trains are operated only once an hour
