Platform-2 at Ernakulam Junction to be extended to host 24-coach trains

Ernakulam Junction railway station faces challenges in extending platforms to accommodate more trains, causing inconvenience to passengers.

Even as the Railways heeded to demands from commuters and invited tenders over a month ago to extend platform-2 at the Ernakulam Junction railway station to accommodate trains having 24 coaches, little has been done to raise platform-3 where elderly and other vulnerable passengers are having a tough time boarding and alighting from trains.

Commuters and passenger associations have for years been demanding that the Railways extend platforms 2, 5, and 6 to avoid detention of express and short-distance trains in the ‘outer’ of the station, to speed them up and to enable the introduction of new trains from the station. The most vociferous among them was Friends on Rails, a conclave of regular train passengers on the Kollam-Alappuzha-Ernakulam route, and Thrissur Railway Passengers’ Association (TRPA).

The inadequate length of the three platforms also hampered the introduction of new trains, despite the manifold increase in demand for rail travel due to frequent traffic snarls in the Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod NH 66 corridor which is being six-laned, official sources said.

As per plan, platform-2 at Ernakulam Junction would be lengthened at an estimated cost of ₹52 lakh by mid-2025. This amount was sanctioned from the ₹1,200 crore allotted in the Budget to the Southern Railway to complete pending projects and to augment passenger amenities at stations. It will enable the introduction of more MEMU services from Ernakulam to nearby districts and also express trains to metro cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai, it is learnt.

The extension of platform-5 could be taken up at a later stage, while that of platform-6 would require more planning. Moreover, all the three platforms cannot be ‘isolated’ simultaneously to execute the work. There is no immediate plan to increase the height of platform-3 to enable faster entry and exit from trains, the sources added.

Welcoming the decision to extend platform-2, TRPA general secretary P. Krishnakumar called upon the Railways to raise the height of the low-lying platform-3, since it is one of the most prominent stations under the Southern Railway. “This must ideally be done either as part of the station’s redevelopment work or the work awarded to another firm, so that both works can be completed simultaneously. The advantage of this would be that the debris from the demolished station building can be reused to raise the platform, entailing much lesser expense than sourcing raw materials afresh. Also, transporting raw materials would be tough post-redevelopment of the station,” he said.

Interestingly, the Railways have cited inadequate number of platforms having adequate length as among the main reasons for the inability to introduce a new MEMU train between Kollam and Ernakulam. There is whopping demand for such a train, since passenger associations say there is approximately 90-minute gap in between Venad Express and Palaruvi Express in the morning. Both the trains are overcrowded, and there have been a spree of recent incidents of commuters fainting, reportedly due to this.