Konkan Railway awaiting railway board nod for track doubling over 350 km, says official

PTI, Jun 20, 2024, 7:37 PM IST

Mangaluru: The Konkan Railway is planning track doubling on certain patches along the 741-km corridor and is waiting for the green signal from the railway board, said a top official on Thursday.

Konkan Railway chief managing director Santosh Kumar Jha said track doubling will help them run more trains.

A proposal for “patch doubling” over 350 km between Kankavali-Sawantwadi and Madgaon-Thokur stations was sent to the board about a year ago and they were waiting for its approval, he told reporters.

“Full doubling at a time is not possible. We are hopeful to get sanctions for patch doubling. Then we can do patchwise doubling,” Jha said, replying to a question about increasing the carrying capacity of Konkan Railway.

Every day, Konkan Railway operates 52 passenger trains and 18 goods trains on the line that runs through Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and a small stretch in Kerala.

It has a double line of about 50 km between Roha and Veer stations. There is a constraint in running more services on single lines as trains need to be taken to siding passing opposite or same directional trains.

Jha said doubling of tracks costs Rs 15 to 20 crore on flat stretches, but it rises to Rs 80 to 100 crore in hilly terrain.

“In the hilly terrain, especially between Veer and Kankavali (stations), the cost (of doubling) is very high. But in the plain terrain after it, certainly doubling can be done,” Jha said. The line on this section passes through hilly areas with multiple tunnels, bridges and gorges.

Barring a few locations, there will be no need for fresh land acquisition as adequate land was acquired when Konkan Railway was established a few decades ago.

Running services becomes more challenging during rains due to the possibility of boulder falls, landslides and track washouts. For safety reasons, Konkan Railway curtails the speed of its trains between June 10 and October 31 every year but it reduces the number of services, he said.