Southern Rly delays arrival time of six trains by 30 minutes

TNN | Jun 15, 2018, 01.04 AM ISTChennai: In an unprecedented move, at least six passenger trains coming to Chennai have been slowed down by 30 minutes by Southern Railway from Tuesday. There has been no official communication in this regard.
The trains are Mysuru-Chennai Shatabdi Express, Bengaluru-Chennai Lalbagh Express, the Delhi-Chennai Garib Rath Express, Nizamuddin-Chennai Rajdhani Express, Coimbatore-Chennai Kovai Express and Jolarpet to Chennai Yelagiri express. The arrival time of Garib Rath at Chennai Central has been delayed by an hour, while for others it has been delayed for an hour.

The details were obtained from Indian Railways official train tracking application (National Train Enquiry System). The changes have not yet been made in the reservation inquiry websites. Officials did not respond to queries if it was permanent or temporary.

Sources in the traffic wing of Southern Railway said that these measures were taken after the Union railway minister Piyush Goyal had indicated that safety has to take precedence. Because of this, it was proposed to carry out a number of long-pending track renewal works in Trivandrum, Salem and Chennai divisions, sources said. On the other hand, the ministry has also indicated that officials would be appraised based on punctuality of trains.

“Due to these works, trains are getting delayed and punctuality figures are getting affected. Hence the running time has been increased to give some breathing space for the officials,” said a source.