Works on third rail line between Vijayawada and Gudur progress, says SCR

Vijayawada: The South Central Railway has taken up several works for laying of a third railway line between Vijayawada and Gudur, augmentation infrastructure and track maintenance in a bid to ensure hassle-free service to passengers.

As for Vijayawada division, the railway has canceled 1,014 services, short-terminated 168, diverted 42 services and changed the origin of 138 services in August, resulting in a 6.5 per cent decline in the number of originating passengers.

The Vijayawada division registered the number of passengers who availed its services at 5.01 million in August alone while from April to August, nearly 26.87 million passengers availed the services.

However, the railway authorities say though there is a decline in the number of passengers availing the services due to the ongoing works, a positive growth of earnings by 5.7 per cent has been recorded. The passengers are preferring to travel by ‘Trains on Demand’ specials, which helped the railways overcome the revenue loss.

The railway is focusing attention on strengthening the rail infrastructure to provide better services to the passengers instead of looking only at the revenue part. The ongoing works including the upcoming rail-over-rail in Vijayawada, are complete to the extent of 60 per cent so far. The remaining works are likely to be completed in a few days’ time.

The Railways has taken up augmentation of infrastructure at inter-zonal and inter-divisional levels including at East Coast Zone to facilitate the operation of both passenger and cargo trains without trouble, for the benefit of the people. In the course of these works, several trains have been cancelled, diverted or short-terminated. Passengers were given a refund of the collected fare in such situations.

With the cancellation and diversion of several trains, demand for road and air travel increased, the Railways noted.