When sparks fly: From November 1, 87 trains in Tamil Nadu will speed up

HIGHLIGHTS

1. The railways will speed up 51 express and 36 passenger trains on lines in Tamil Nadu from November 1
2. With a doubled section beyond Trichy, 19 diesel-electric multiple unit (DEMU) trains in the division will speed up by between five and 20 minutes.

CHENNAI: Train journeys to various places in the state, including Trichy and Madurai, are about to get faster.
The railways will speed up 51 express and 36 passenger trains on lines in Tamil Nadu from November 1.
These include 30 express trains of Southern Railway, which has administrative control over Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and 21 inter-railway expresses. Senior railway officials on Tuesday confirmed that a new timetable, leaked on instant messaging platforms, was a final copy . The Puduchery-Mangalore Weekly Express will be 75 minutes faster and Chennai Egmore-Mangalore Express 60 minutes faster.
The Rameswaram Express and Chennai-Sengottai Silambu Express will both cut running time by 50 minutes. The MangaloreChennai Express will save 40 minutes, and Chennai Egmore-Madurai Pandian Express 35 minutes (30 minutes in the reverse direction). The Cholan Express will be faster by 20 minutes and Rockfort Express from Chennai by 15 minutes.

The Kanyakumari Express will be faster by 20 minutes, officials confirmed.
With a doubled section beyond Trichy, 19 diesel-electric multiple unit (DEMU) trains in the division will speed up by between five and 20 minutes. The Faizabad-Rameswaram Weekly Express will cut running time by 100 minutes and the bi-weekly Mangalore-Kacheguda Express will slash its time by 235 minutes (close to four hours).
The railways will extend the Ananthapuri Express up to Kollam, Amirtha Express to Madurai and ChennaiPalani Express to Palakkad via Pollachi.
Chennai's suburban network will get three new trains from November 1. One of them will be from Chengalpet to Thirumalpur; it will depart Chengalpet at 5.15am and Thirumalpur at 9pm. A second, between Chennai Central and Avadi, will depart from Chennai Central at 2.05pm and Avadi 2.50pm.The third new train, on the Chennai Beach-Tiruvallur section, will depart from Beach at 4.40pm and Tiruvallur at 6.30pm.