Railway Infrastructure Upgrade Is Paying Off, Travel Time Reduced For 350 Trains

The railway infrastructure upgrade is slowly beginning to pay off, with a total of 350 trains that are either running on time or reaching their destinations before time.

As part of a series of infra upgrades, a route relay interlocking (RRI) system, was installed on busy routes to ensure faster movement of trains. This has resulted in reduction in journey time of several trains. A total of 350 mails/expresses and 74 superfast trains, including Rajdhanis and Shatabdis, are now reaching their destinations five to 25 minutes before time.

“We have managed to save total 130 minutes in 12 Rajdhani trains and 60 minutes in six Shatabdi trains due to various measures being undertaken in a gradual manner,” a railways official said, adding that “major changes were carried out at Allahabad junction, the most congested section, to speed up services”.

When Suresh Prabhu took over as railways minister, route congestion was one of the major issues that was affecting the performance of the Indian Railways. This was partly because previous railway ministers had announced and launched too many new trains without adequate investment in capacity addition or enhancement. He even termed such announcements as ‘political gimmicks’.

Prabhu has since emphasised on capacity addition and investment. For now, it looks like small incremental upgrades such as better signalling systems are helping the railways operate more efficiently.