Protest against train diversions

PALAKKAD: The moves of the railways to divert six long-distance trains through the link-line without touching Shoranur Junction is snowballing into a major issue.An all-party meeting was held against the proposal at the Mayilvahanam Community Hall in Shoranur on Monday. A 12-hour fast is also planned by the people’s representatives before the office of the Divisional Railway Manager on Tuesday.The contention of the railways was that it could save more than half an hour for long-distance passengers.‘The moves of the railways to divert six trains through the link-line without touching the Shoranur Junction in July will affect the economic development of Shoranur and the Malabar area,” M B Rajesh MP said.The six long-distance trains proposed to be diverted are the Sabari Express, Rapthisagar Express, Koraba Express, Indore Express, Alleppey-Dhanbad Express and Barauni Express.  The leaders from the Malabar area pointed out that these long-distance trains provided connection to Shoranur-Nilambur passengers.“Apart from the hardships to commuters, hundreds of catering workers selling eateries from stalls in the station and engaged in other jobs could also be severely affected when the trains do not touch the station. Naturally, the unions across political parties were also against the move,” Mukesh of the INTUC union in Shoranur said.Triangular station at ShoranurThe triangular station was proposed to connect the adjacent railway stations of Shoranur, Bharathapuzha and Vallathol Nagar to turn the direction of trains coming from Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore side to Shoranur.This will facilitate engine reversal without changing the direction of the train. Thus half-an-hour time could be saved by avoiding engine reversal.  The link-line was proposed by constructing one additional rail line at Shoranur to make it possible to turn the direction of the train.It will help solve the problem of engine reversal for trains coming from Thiruvanathapuram to Palakkad via Shoranur.However, during the tenure of O Rajagopal as Railway Minister, he had pointed out that a triangular station or link-line was not feasible according to the study undertaken by the railways since it entailed heavy investment.