KOZHIKODE: Ending a seven-year wait, an electric train is ready to chug along the entire route from Shornur to Mangaluru. An order to this effect has been issued by Southern Railway on Friday. Till now, electric loco (AC traction) had to be changed from Shornur station to proceed towards North. Only three passenger trains were running with electric loco up to Kannur recently. According to railways, four pair trains will run on the electrified Shornur-Mangalure stretch (328 km) in the first phase. They are: 16605/16606 Mangaluru- Nagercoil Ernad Express, 16649/16650 Mangaluru- Nagercoil Parasuram Exp-ress, 16629/16630 Thiruvananthapuram-Mangaluru Malabar Express and 12685/12686 Chennai Cen-tral-Mangaluru Express.
These trains will pass by Shornur junction without changing the electric loco. “The order had reached us and it will materialise soon after taking care of loco linking and crew linking aspects,” said deputy chief engineer (electrification) V.K. Manoharan. He added that electric locos should start operation within days or weeks. The Railways was also urged to speed up the four pair trains to the extent possible. A change in the loco meant minimum 20 minutes lost for a train.
The work on the Rs 400 crore Shornur-Mangaluru electrification project was started seven years back under the Chennai project unit of Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE), Allahabad. Though track electrification was completed on time, construction of traction substation and charging took time. Sources said that availability of sufficient number of AC traction locos is a cause for worry now. To facilitate the running of four pair trains on AC traction, five pair passenger trains, running in southern Kerala and 56657/56652 Calicut-Cannanore Passenger will operate with diesel loco temporarily.
