nandakumar wrote:A question for vsunder Sir or anyone familiar with Chennai suburban railway network. Wouldn't it make more sense for Southern Railway to operate Gummidipoondi/Tada suburban trains from Fort Station. The present arrangement of operating from Moore Market Complex results in suburban trains crossing with long distance trains bound for the West and beyond. Fort Station has six platforms. Enough to run Beach Tambaram and Velachery MRTS.
No need to go to Fort, SR has a 9-platform terminal at Beach itself which they use today. In fact, most trains from Beach are extended to Velachery in the southern part of the city via the MRTS line, so Velachery itself is connected to Tiruttani, Arakkonam, Gummidipoondi directly, and these trains have become very popular.
Fort has only 4 suburban platforms, plus one on the express line that used by express trains and goods trains only. That's because 2 of these are for the Tambaram suburban section, 2 for MRTS, and 1 express/goods (between Egmore and Beach, the 2 express tracks reduce to 1 due to space constraints). There is not much scope to use this platform as more north/west bound express trains have started from Egmore and they use this track. There is no turnback facility, nor is there any stabling infra for extra rakes. A turnback facility could be added with new switch points if needed, but there is absolutely no space for extra stabling tracks. Anyway, all this is moot since Beach has all of this in abundance and is hardly a kilometre away. Since it has 9 platforms, it can also handle a lot more capacity than Fort ever could dream of.
Chennai metro (CMRL) if it takes over the MRTS line, has proposed using Fort as the terminal station for MRTS trains, primarily because their underground metro station is across the street, and they want to ease integration. I find it a harebrained scheme as it would duplicate infra at Fort that is already available at Beach, while not providing that much greater benefit to existing passengers. In fact, passengers from AJJ/GPD suburbs will come to Beach and not be able to take MRTS directly, so the latter will lose that ridership: they'll be forced to take the Tambaram bound trains for only one stop, and would rather take a direct bus to their destination at that point. Lastly, a CMRL owned MRTS could continue to start from Beach and provide connectivity with the suburban trains there, while offering the integrated connectivity for metro passengers CMRL wants to provide at Fort. Hence, my characterization as "hare-brained".
Now, your point was about Moore market: yes, it is true that GPD bound locals have to cross the AJJ-bound express fast tracks before Basin bridge. In fact, they might also end up crossing the GPD side fast tracks if SR decides to use the newly laid 3rd and 4th tracks for suburban trains (these are laid to right of the existing northbound tracks). But demand from MMC is very high, and given that the Central area is a hub for Tambaram-side suburban trains, MRTS, Chennai metro, MTC buses, the government General Hospital, etc. people would prefer to change here itself instead waiting to go to Beach and then taking the GPD bound trains. But if traffic congestion justifies it, SR could move all GPD trains to Beach instead of Central, and run some token/peak-hour services out of MMC, or even start them from Basin bridge itself. But whether this will be sufficient for AJJ-GPD connecting passengers remains to be seen (they change at Basin bridge today, which falls on the line to Central/MMC). It would be easier to run GPD bound locals alone from the main Central station: PF-2A is a short platform that can turn out local trains only every 10-15 mins. But this will have some impact on the express trains' rake and loco movement between Central and the Basin Bridge yard. This movement is not trivial given the number of trains handled at Central and SR may be loathe to disturb this.
Sridhar K wrote:nandakumar wrote:A question for vsunder Sir or anyone familiar with Chennai suburban railway network. Wouldn't it make more sense for Southern Railway to operate Gummidipoondi/Tada suburban trains from Fort Station. The present arrangement of operating from Moore Market Complex results in suburban trains crossing with long distance trains bound for the West and beyond. Fort Station has six platforms. Enough to run Beach Tambaram and Velachery MRTS.
vSunder Saar or arshyam can correct me but the challenge was the line from Beach to Rayapuram was a single line shared by goods to Chennai port.
Only now read from BRF has been doubled after port trust shifted their compound to have way for the second line. Plus Beach Arakonam services also use this line and running the gummidipoondi services will also impact the Tambaram beach operations a bit.
No, it wasn't so bad earlier
. There were always two tracks between Beach and Royapuram, and now 2 more are coming up. They'll be ready in a month or two, per my own observation last week. So there will 4 tracks in total on this route. 2 dedicated for goods and express trains, and 2 for locals. This stretch is used to run locals between Beach and AJJ/Tiruttani as well as GPD. The significance is that there are now 4 tracks to both AJJ and Ennore, thereby ensuring faster clearance of goods trains to both Chennai port and Ennore ports, while allowing more suburban trains.
Now, Velachery-Beach-Arakkonam services are not as numerous as those to MMC. However, that was mostly due to the limited capacity between Royapuram and Beach, and could change. This could cause congestion near Vyasarpadi, where the main lines out of Central turn west and join the tracks out of Beach. My guess is that SR may not add a lot more services due to this very reason, but let's see. People can anyway change at Central, so its not a serious problem.
Tambaram services from Beach are completely isolated from the AJJ/GPD services, having 4 dedicated platforms and two tracks all the way to Tambaram. Only scenario would be the upcoming circular trains (Beach-Tambaram-Chengalpet-Kanchipuram-Arakkonam-Beach), but I don't expect them to be a lot in number to impact capacity; SR will add enough slack between services to affect punctuality. In fact, I think SR will stick to circular in network only - i.e. run locals on Beach-TBM-CGL-AJJ only, and the connecting AJJ-MMC/Beach will continue as it is today. But passengers can connect at AJJ as needed.
Glossary:
MAS: Chennai central
MMC: Moore market complex, the suburban terminal next to Chennai Central station.
Beach: Chennai Beach station, that is a suburban terminal next to the harbour
Park Town/Chennai Park: the MRTS and Tambaram-side suburban stations opposite Chennai Central
Fort: Chennai fort, intermediate station between Beach and Park
BBQ: Basin bridge, first station out of Central/MMC
AJJ: Arakkonam
GPD: Gummidipoondi
