Coimbatore railway junction needs space

Any plea for a new train service for Coimbatore to accelerate the pace of growth of the textile city often used to be turned down by the railway administration with a stock reply that there were not enough space and facilities in Coimbatore to accommodate and maintain coaches.

This has renewed the long-pending demand for developing a satellite railway terminal for Coimbatore. Any growing city having a congested railway station will have a satellite terminal as in the case of Egmore. Egmore is a satellite station for Chennai Central, Nizamuddin for New Delhi, Cantonment for Bangalore and Kurla for Mumbai.

On one hand the reply or the refrain of the authorities for introducing new trains was true but the question as to what was being done to get the required space to bring in the facilities remained unanswered, said K. Kathirmathiyon of Coimbatore Consumer Cause. The existing junction premises was struggling for space to provide terminal facilities for terminating and originating trains and for maintaining the coaches.

As on date, Coimbatore Junction on an average has 15 terminating and originating trains, including weekly and bi-weekly trains, besides 32 pairs of trains which pass through the junction. The terminal facilities required include loop lines for parking the trains, sick line and pit line for maintaining the coaches. Even the space created by shifting the container terminal was inadequate, railway sources said.

Citing lack of space, the Southern Railway was reportedly toying with the idea of extending more trains to destinations in Kerala, especially after the move to bifurcate the Palakkad division for formation of a new division with headquarters at Salem.

Such a move would definitely deprive the Coimbatore people of the existing facilities, K. Ramakrishnan of the Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam said. It was time the Southern Railway initiated measures to get the required space, he said.

Earlier proposals for acquiring land belonging to the NTC Mills in Kattoor were found to be technically unviable. Hence, the railway administration should consider the suggestion for developing the North Coimbatore Junction for trains that pass through the Coimbatore Junction besides creating terminal facilities at the Podanur Junction for parking trains and creating pit line and sick line facilities, C.M. Jayaraman of the Citizens Voice Club said.

Once these two stations were developed congestion at the Coimbatore Junction as well as in the areas in and round could be eliminated, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said.