Even as Southern Railway is keen to hew out a third track in the Ernakulam-Shoranur corridor, demand is rife that automatic signalling be introduced as an interim measure to augment capacity in the busy corridor.
“Automatic signalling will enable operation of more than double the existing number of trains through the existing double tracks. The cost will be just ₹500 crore at the rate of less than ₹5 crore per km. This is equivalent to the cost of constructing a 2-km-long metro rail corridor, where each km entails a cost of ₹250 crore,” a senior Railway official said.
This is absolutely necessary in the Ernakulam-Shoranur corridor, which has to cater to trains which converge at Ernakulam from both Kottayam and Alappuzha. As per the existing conventional signal system, a train has to reach the next station in order for a subsequent train to use the track. On the contrary, a second train can operate along the same track, once a train that preceded it has covered a distance of a kilometre or so. Trains can operate leaving a distance of two km between them, even presuming that this is theory and a little far fetched to attain in Kerala’s undulating terrain which has many curves, he added.
Yet another official spoke of how the Signalling and Telecommunication Wing of the Railway can easily introduce automatic signalling in the corridor without disturbing the existing network of tracks. “All that is needed is new cabling along the stretch to modify the signalling system. The top speed in the corridor will continue to be 80 kmph even after introduction of automatic signalling, unless curves and gradients become less steep.”
Third track
Augmentation of tracks by laying a third and fourth track is a long-term alternative aimed at increasing speed and introducing new trains. This was done in Chennai where automatic signalling was introduced in three double-track stretches from the city. The third and fourth tracks were laid later in three directions, up to a distance of 60 km from the city. Their capacity too was augmented through introducing automatic signalling.
In Kerala, the main challenge to laying new tracks is land acquisition. There are approximately 50 plots of land (most of which have houses or other buildings) in every kilometre of track in places like Kottayam. Thus, land acquisition, which began over 15 years ago for laying a second track through the district, is scheduled for completion only by December 2021.
In Alappuzha, only doubling of Ambalapuzha-Harippad track will be realised this year. Doubling of the balance 70 km of track has been kept in abeyance due to what the Railway terms as “funds paucity”. This includes the Kumbalam-Ernakulam stretch where the Railway has demanded that the State government bear half the cost of doubling, due to high cost of land acquisition.
Responding to this, a Railway official said that doubling a kilometre of track requires approximately ₹35 crore. This works out to a total of ₹2,500 crore. Thus, doubling through Alappuzha can be easily realised if the Railway and State government set apart ₹1,250 crore each over a two or three-year period, he said.
The amount is a pittance as compared to the over ₹65,000 crore semi-high-speed rail corridor project that the State intends to build, linking Thiruvananthapuram with Kasaragod. Railway commuters in Alappuzha will still be denied the benefits of the project, since it will pass through Kottayam, the official added.
