Southern Railway zone

History

The history of the Southern Railway can be traced back to the Madras Railway. In 1832, the proposal to construct the first railway line in India at Madras was made by the British. In 1835, the railway track was constructed between Little Mount and Chintadripet in Madras and became operational in 1837. The Madras Railway was established later in 1845 and the construction on the first main line between Madras and Arcot started in 1853, which became operational in 1856. In 1908, Madras Railway merged with Southern Mahratta Railway to form the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway.

In 1944, all the railway companies operating in British India were taken over by the Government. Post Independence, various re-grouping proposals were studied as there were 42 different railway systems. In December 1950, the Central Advisory Committee for Railways approved the plan for Indian Railways into six zonal systems and the Southern Railway zone was created on 14 April 1950 by merging three state railways, namely, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway Company, and the Mysore State Railway.

Organisation

Southern Railway zone covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and a small portion of Andhra Pradesh. Andaman and Nicobar will form part of the zone once the proposed new railway line between Port Blair and Diglipur becomes operational.

The Southern Railway is headed by the General Manager, assisted by an Additional General Manager. Southern Railway is headquartered in Chennai and is divided into six divisions namely Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, Palakkad, Salem and Thiruvananthapuram.

Operations and infrastructure

The zone operates both passenger and freight trains. Various classes of passenger trains including Vande Bharat Express, Shatabdi Express and Tejas Express are operated by Southern Railways. Freight operations include container traffic from the ports, coal bound to the thermal power stations, oil and petroleum products from refineries, cement and food grains. Most of the lines inside ports, thermal stations, manufacturing industries and owned by the respective companies and the zone provides a link connecting to its network along with the wagons and locomotives. The zone has a larger proportion of passenger traffic compared to freight. There are about 727 stations on the Southern railway network.

Locomotives

Southern Railway utilizes various classes of electric and diesel locomotives to haul the trains. Steam locomotives are used by the Nilgiri Mountain Railway. The zone has three electric locomotive sheds and four diesel locomotive sheds.

Maintenance and workshops

Southern Railway maintains wagon and locomotive workshops at Perambur, Chennai and Ponmalai, Tiruchirapalli, engineering workshop at Arakkonam, carriage maintenance workshops at Basin Bridge and Egmore and a signal and telecommunication workshop at Podanur, Coimbatore. It has three EMU car sheds in Chennai at Avadi, Tambaram, Velachery and MEMU sheds at Kollam and Palakkad. Southern Railway maintains trip sheds at Basin Bridge, Egmore, Tondiarpet and Jolarpettai. Southern Railway operated ticket printing presses at Royapuram, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchirappalli, but these have been phased out due to digitization.

Railway coaches and wagons

Southern Railways uses both ICF coaches and LHB coaches for its trains. ICF coaches manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai have been used predominantly for over sixty years since the formation of the zone in 1951. The ICF coaches are slowly being replaced by newer LHB rakes which provide better passenger comfort and safety.

Railway lines

Following are the list of railway lines operational.

Defunct railway lines include Kundala Valley Railways, Kochin Tramways, Madras Tramways, Tiruchendur Light Railway, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri famine light railways, Kodaikanal Light Railway.

Trains

Southern Railways operates 41 sets of express trains and 97 sets of superfast trains. The superfast trains include: Vande Bharat Express (10), Shatabdi Express (2), Garib Rath Express (2), Duronto Express (1), Jan Shatabdi Express (4), Sampark Kranti Express (1), Anuvrat Express (1), Humsafar Express (1), Tejas Express (1), Uday Express (1), Antyodaya Express (2) and Double Decker Express (1). Apart from this, it operates various Passenger trains, DEMU, EMU services, Chennai Suburban and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway.

Stations

There are about 727 stations on the Southern railway network, including 486 non suburban stations, 74 suburban stations and 166 halt stations. The major and highest revenue earning stations are Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Coimbatore Junction, Tambaram, Madurai Junction, Thiruvananthapuram Central and Ernakulam Junction.

Chennai Suburban

Chennai Suburban Railway is the commuter rail system in the city of Chennai, operated by the Southern Railways. The system operates four lines with a track length of 1174.21 km, of which 509.71 km are dedicated dual tracks for EMUs.

Nilgiri Mountain Railway

Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a railway in Nilgiris district connecting Mettupalayam and Udagamandalam. It was built during the British Raj in 1908 and is currently operated by the Southern Railways. It is the only rack railway in India and operates on its own fleet of steam locomotives between Coonoor and Udhagamandalam. In July 2005, UNESCO added the Nilgiri Mountain Railway as an extension to the World Heritage Site of Mountain Railways of India.

References

References

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