Study on feasibility of expansion of flying railway stations: Southern Railway information

Tamil Nadu: Southern Railway is studying the feasibility of expanding multi-train railway stations (MRTS) in Chennai to accommodate 12 coach trains, officials said.

In Chennai, long platforms have been built to accommodate 12 coach trains on the Beach-Tambaram-Chengalpattu route. However, out of the 17 stations on the Beach-Velachery flying train route, 8 stations have platforms to accommodate 9 coach trains, including Pungaka, Chintadhiripettai, Chepauk, Thiruvallikeni, Kalankarai Vilca, Mundakakanni Amman Koil and Thirumayilai. Southern Railway has decided to extend the platforms of these stations to accommodate 12 coach trains.

Feasibility study: When asked about this, Southern Railway officials said, ‘By expanding the Flying Saucer stations, electric trains can be operated directly from Arakkonam, Tiruvallur, Gummidipoondi and Avadi to Velachery. This will benefit thousands of passengers daily. Therefore, the officials are currently studying the feasibility of expanding the railway stations on this route.

Also, since these railway stations are located on elevated flyovers, there is no issue of land acquisition. Therefore, the project work will start after the project report is prepared and approval of the Railway Ministry and the Tamil Nadu government is obtained.

Work delayed due to litigation: Meanwhile, the Flying Train Service project work to be extended to Parangimalai at an estimated cost of Rs 495 crore began in 2008. The completion of the project is constantly getting delayed due to problems in land acquisition. Since all the land owners have filed separate cases in the court demanding more compensation, the above work could not be continued. Therefore, with the help of the Tamil Nadu government, efforts are being made to resolve this by talking to all the land owners at the same time.