Friday, February 8, 2019

Tejas Express to Madurai not to roll on Sunday, likely on Feb 27
Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:08.02.2019

The Railway Board on Wednesday night gave the green signal to Southern Railway to run the Tejas Express from Chennai to Madurai. Top railway sources said, however, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not inaugurate the train on February 10 as was decided earlier. He is likely to inaugurate the train on February 27 when he visits Nagercoil and Kanyakumari.

“Tejas has been ready to be flagged off for a month. It has been waiting at the Basin Bridge yard,” said a railways official. Once operational, the train will leave Chennai Egmore at 6am and roll into Madurai station six hours and 30 minutes later. It will only stop at Trichy and Kodai Road. In the return direction, it will start from Madurai at 3pm and reach Chennai at 9:30pm.

Travellers are disappointed with the delay. “We were expecting it during Pongal holidays,” said J Mahendran, a frequent traveller between Chennai and Madurai.

The journey time of four hours and 23 minutes and four hours and 38 minutes between Chennai and Trichy is aimed at giving a tough fight to airlines, said senior officials. From Chennai, the train will reach Kodai Road at 11:38am, which means tourists from the state capital can reach Kodaikanal by noon. In the return direction, the train will reach Kodai Road at 3:28pm.

Tejas Express has onboard wifi, a CCTV system, modular toilets and better seats. It will be the first premier train linking Chennai Egmore with southern districts. Tickets may cost around ₹1,000 for a chair-car seat if the dynamic pricing is taken into account. An executive class seat will cost around ₹2,000.



WILL HAVE TO WAIT

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