Railways run shuttle services to ease woes of suburban train commuters

Southern Railway launches shuttle and bus services to alleviate commuter woes amid reduced suburban train operations in Chennai.

Facing criticism from all quarters, the Southern Railway is taking several steps to alleviate the problems of commuters using the Beach-Tambaram and Chengalpattu suburban train services. 

The Southern Railway had announced reduction and curtailment of suburban services from Egmore railway station for a period of 45 days from February 20 to April 5 to facilitate the construction of the redevelopment work at Egmore railway station.

The electrical multiple unit (EMU) services were reduced from the normal 204 services to 160 services. However the suburban services were further reduced to 115 and to compensate for that shuttle services were operated from St. Thomas Mount to Guduvanchery railway station. 

A senior official of the Southern Railway said that several measures have been taken by the Chennai division since the reduction of train services. He said as part of compensating for the reduced services 26 shuttle services have been launched along with hiring 20 buses of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC). The commuters having valid train tickets and monthly passes are allowed to travel free of cost in these buses.

In a major development 10 EMU services with 15-car rakes have been introduced along with 20 special fast EMU services on the up and down directions from Beach to Tambaram. The 20 fast EMU services having limited stops would be running under one hour to help commuters reach their offices on time.