The SCR too is in line to get private trains running on about 11 routes, and once the Railway Board finalises the modalities of the open tender called from private players, they could be up and running this year itself bringing about a transformation in the on board services, said General Manager Gajanan Mallya on Wednesday.
Interestingly, these trains are slated to run from new terminals in the suburbs like Lingamapally and upcoming one at Cherlapalli. Proposed routes for these trains are: Cherlapally-Srikakulam, Lingampally-Tirupati, Cherlapalli-Varnasi, Cherlapally-Panvel, Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam, Tirupati-Visakhapatnam, Cherlapally-Chennai, Cherlapally-Shalimar, Secunderabad-Guwahati.
Aurangabad-Panvel and Guntur-Lingampally are likely to be run from new ‘Tejas’ trains.
Some of these trains are to be twice or thrice a week.
“The railways will be in charge of the crew, maintenance, safety, signalling and maintenance while the chosen private parties will be looking after food, sanitation, entertainment, shopping and so on. We will get the details soon,” he said.
Another key announcement made by Mr. Mallya was about increasing the speeds of the trains to 130 kmph within two years on the following routes: Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam, Gudur-Balarshah, Renigunta-Wadi and Vijayawada-Wadi, with the government giving more funds towards improvement of signalling and telecommunication. These routes are along the Golden Quadrilateral connecting the four metros of Delhi-Mumbai-Howrah-Chennai.
