Picturesque Senkottai-Punalur Railway Route Back On Track

Southern Railway’s picturesque Senkottai-Punalur section is back on track after a gap of almost eight years with the introduction of a special train from Tambaram in Tamil Nadu’s suburban Chennai to Kollam in Kerala. This section will form part of the Tenkasi-Virudhunagar trunk route to Chennai. It is also linked to Kollam-Senkottai-Tenkasi-Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur route.

The section has been revived after gauge conversion work that began in 2011 was completed recently. Rail services were stopped in this section in September 2010 for conversion of the metre gauge to broad gauge as part of Indian Railways uni-gauge policy. The first train on the section, a special one, was run on Friday and the response was overwhelming. Two Members of Parliament N K Premachandran and Kodikunnil Suresh boarded the special train at Senkottai.

Times of India reported that a special train carried 879 passengers against its capacity of 712. The section is likely to be inaugurated formally later this month, though. The special train that left Tambaram on Friday at 5 pm reached Kollam at 10 am Saturday is likely to be made a regular weekly special.

The Senkottai-Punalaur section will also offer a shorter route to those going to Thiruvananthapuram from Chennai. Currently, passengers from Chennai go to Thiruvananthapuram either via Coimbatore-Palakkad route or Madurai-Kanyakumari route. This route is important from the traders’ point of view.

The Senkottai-Punalar route will likely attract devotees headed to Sabarimala since it passes through important pilgrim centres like Aryankavu and Achankovil that are part of the 108 Sasthalayas and are a must visit for the devotees.

Before the services were discontinued, the Kollam-Senkottai route, a metre gauge whose construction began in 1900, was the first one of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom. The construction of the railway route was undertaken jointly by the kingdom, Madras Presidency and Southern Railway Company. The first service was inaugurated in 1904.

Kollam is 65 km from Thiruvananthapuram. It also has rail connections to Ernakulam (Kochi) via Alappuzha and Kottayam.