RAILWAY SAMACHAR

Finally, a rail link to Shirdi,

from Manmad via Puntamba

Mumbai : The day is not far when thousands of Mumbai's Shirdi Sai Baba devotees can directly reach Shirdi for darshan by an overnight rail journey. The work on the new Puntamba-Shirdi line has been completed. The Commissioner of Railway Safety will inspect the tracks on February 10 and the line is expected to be opened forrailway traffic by the end of this month. According to sources, the Railway Board has decided that Train No. 1333, which goes to Manmad, will now go to Shirdi via Puntamba. The train, which departs from CST at 10.55 pm, is expected to reach Shirdi at 7.35 pm. In the return direction, it will leave Shirdi atnight and reach Mumbai the next morning. K K Sharma, chief administrative officer (construction), said: "All the major works have been completed. The final touches on the tracksand the station building at Shirdi are being done now." He said the Commissioner of Railway Safety's inspection has been scheduled on February 10. "Hopefully, the line will be opened for traffic in February itself."

Plans for 3 more stations

Kolkata : The railway standing committee of Parliament has proposed three more terminals in Calcutta to cope with the increasing passenger rush.The city now has four terminals — Howrah, Sealdah, Shalimar and Chitpur."In the proposal sent to the ministry we have said the city needs at least three more terminals, which we want in Patipukur and Howrah's Salt Gola for the Eastern Railway (ER) and Majherhat for the South Eastern Railway (SER)," panel chief Basudeb Acharya said. The two ER terminals will run only suburban trains, while the one in Majherhat will be for long-distance trains. With an annual eight percent growth in passenger count, the three major terminals — Howrah, Sealdah and Chitpur — will be saturated within a few years. "There had been proposals to set up passenger terminals in Patipukur and Majherhat which were scrapped. It's timethey were revived," said Acharya. On the proposed Majherhat terminal, Acharya said it could be analternative to the one in Shalimar which most passengers find difficult to reach because of transport problems. Railway officials said a survey was on for building passenger terminals in the city. "The survey, being conducted by RITES, is exploring the options of building up integrated passenger-cargoterminals and also whether such facilities could be shared with the Metro Railway," an official said. The ER has already sent a proposal for the Salt Gola terminal to the Railway Board. "The proposed facility will go a long way in reducing passenger load once Howrah station is upgraded into a world-classterminal," said an ER official. The standing committee members, who met senior ER and SER officials.

Special trains rake in extra bucks for S Rly

CHENNAI : Special trains just do not help clear the extra passenger rush. They also help the railways to rake in more profits. As it happened in December 2008, when Southern Railway made an extra Rs 10.43 crore when it ran 358 special services during the month. All trains were booked three months in advance. Statistics indicate that since 2005, the fortunes of the railway have doubled as it put more special trains on track. However, of late there is a greater demand for special trains and the railways is cashing in on it. For in December 2007, the railways operated only 348 special trains and made Rs 8.22 crore, said Neenu Ittyerah, spokesperson, Southern Railway. The special services are operated to cater to peak demand during holiday season, festivals, block holidays and weekends. In 2008, therailways provided 4,405 coaches for special trains. "Every endeavour is made to run these specials with a trailing loadof 22 coaches. Specials, which used to run mainly as passenger trains, have been converted to express and superfast trains. This has also contributed to increase in revenue," added Neenu. Specials are run by lie-over rakes and traffic spare coaches. As the railways maintain the trains with available infrastructure, including pit lines and staff, no additional expenses are incurred.

Nama Metro gets a relief of Rs 160 crore

BANGALORE : Nama Metro has, finally, got some relief in terms of a Rs. 160 crore reduction in the prices of rolling stock. Is the reliefgoing to be passed to commuters? The answer seems to be no. Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) looks non-committalon any possible reduction in the proposed fare hike after areduction of 8.73 per cent on the original prices offered by BEML. Earlier, when BEML had offered a price much higher than what BMRCL had expected, the BMRCL was prompt to indicate that the fares would go up when the Metro starts operations. BMRCL had earlier said that a 25 to 30 per cent hike was likely inthe ticket fare which was in the range of Rs 7 to Rs 15.Now, the BEML has reduced prices by Rs 160 crore, bringing down theprices below the BMRCL's estimate. Prices of rolling stock was one-fifth of the total project cost, BMRCL had said. The same logic mustapply when the rolling stock prices go down. Now, the rolling stock prices (Rs 1,672.5 crore including spares, training and manual support) form 16.3 per cent of the total escalated project cost (Rs10,263), BMRCL clarifies Managing Director, BMRCL, N Sivasailam, said: "Higher prices from BEML might have caused a marginal hike, ifany, in the fare. The major reason for hike in proposed fares was the escalation of the project cost." The cost of the original 33-km project (Phase I) has gone up to Rs 8,500 from the original estimate of Rs 6,395 crore while a 9.3-km extension in the Phase I would costan additional Rs 1,763. This means a hike of 60.48 per cent in the project cost. Metro fare would be less than 1.5 times bus fare forthe same distance, Sivasailam explained.

Nagarjuna Construction bags Rs 712-cr orders

Mumbai : Infrastructure firm Nagarjuna Construction Company on Monday said it has bagged four orders worth Rs 712 crore for construction-related works from different companies. The first a Rs 360-crore worth order is secured from Singareni Collieries for blast hole drilling, controlled blasting to becompleted over 72 months, while second order worth Rs 161 crore is from the National Buildings Construction Corp for construction ofhouses to be completed in a year, Nagarjuna said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Further, the third order worth Rs 150 crore is from Bangalore Metro Rail for design and construction of different works, to be completed over a period of 30 months, and the last order valued at Rs 41 croreis from Mumbai Metro politan Region Development Authority for construction of skywalk to be completed over a period of six months, it added.