Kochi to Bangalore at the speed of a bullet
Kochin to Bangalore: IS THE long wait at the airport lounges annoying you? Are you tired of the slow, time consuming journeys by road and railway networks? Well, there is good news for those who want to break the existing speed barriers and hurtle into the future through specially built tracks - at least in the Kochi-Bangalore corridor.
The 600 odd km Kochi - Bangalore route is one of the busiest in the region. Taking into account the rush of passengers by air, rail and road the Indian Railways is considering the introduction high speed trains or bullet trains in the sector.
Railway sources say that the project is in conceptual stage. The Rail-ways would initially do a traffic survey to study the traffic pattern and to generate data on such indicators like the demand in the next 20 years, the usage of each mode of transport and the volume of traffic that would get diverted to the high speed corridor. After this, the en-gineering survey would identify the route and estimate the costs. It will outline the terminal facilities and determine the speed.
“There are 12 trains between Kochi and Bangalore in a week, which carry around 12,000 passengers”, said CMC Nair, area manager, Southern Railway. According to him, there is an average waiting list of 150 people for each of these trains. “It is one of the busiest routes”, he said adding that the high speed train is a project of the future.
Rough estimates based on services that originate from Kochi and sub-urbs indicate that around 4500 people travel by bus in the same route in a week. Other districts in the state also have high volume traffic to Bangalore.
On the other hand, air traffic in the Kochi - Bangalore sector is grow-ing each day. Presently there are 12 daily flights in the route, which carry roughly 4500 passengers in a week. Says Vinod Menon of Travel Mall, “the air traffic is likely to grow at 30% in the coming years given the developments in the IT and tourism fields”. He, however, main-tains that the business traveller who flies to Bangalore or Kochi in the morning and returns in the evening would still prefer to travel by air.
Meanwhile, the Railway Board, finance commissioner, Mr R Shivadasan, has gone on record that the Kochi-Bangalore corridor is being considered along with the Kolkata-Patna sector and the Mumbai to Ahmedabad and Mumbai to Delhi links.
Experts have also pointed out that for short distances of 600 to 700 km bullet trains are faster than air travel if we take into account the travel time to airports and the waiting time in the airport. In any case, for students, business men, holiday makers and others who have suffered the hardships of travel in the route between Kochi and Bangalore, the possibility of a traveling in a rail corridor at 200 plus km speed must be pretty exciting.
Written by Linu on June 3rd, 2007 with
no comments.
Read more articles on Bangalore Buzz.
- [+] Digg: Feature this article
- [+] Del.icio.us: Bookmark this article
- [+] Furl: Bookmark this article