There is no sustainable alternative to mass rapid transport of rail commuters in Kerala other than Silver Line — the 530-km Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod semi-high-speed rail corridor, for which pre-investment activities are under way, says Kerala Railway Development Corporation Ltd. (KRDCL) managing director V. Ajith Kumar.
‘Least disturbance’
The ₹63,941-crore project is worth the expense since third and fourth tracks parallel to the existing rail lines would affect thousands of houses and other buildings in close proximity to the tracks. On the contrary, the Silver Line alignment, would pass mostly through open spaces and could be built with least disturbance to buildings, he claims.
Moreover, trains would be able to operate only at much the same speed as now even if two additional tracks are laid parallel to the existing corridor. They would eventually have to reduce the speed to less than 100 kmph at 260 (major curves) of the around 700 curves along the corridor. Keeping this in mind, the Silver Line alignment has been envisaged as largely greenfield (undeveloped areas) on the Thiruvananthapuram-Tirur stretch. It would proceed parallel to the existing tracks on much of the Tirur-Kasaragod stretch, except in curves where they would take a deviation, he adds.
The fare too would be competitive, vis-a-vis personalised travel modes such as cars the operational cost of which is around ₹10 per km and would still have to commute through congested and accident-prone highways. The per-km fare to commute by Silver Line, which would operate at an average speed of 200 kmph, would be just ₹2.75 per km.
Apart from lessening congestion on highways, the proposed rail corridor would also cater to 480 lorries a day, further decongesting highways. This is achieved by the roll in, roll out (RoRo transit) of laden/empty lorries.
Aimed at enabling higher speed, the Silver Line rail would have standard gauge rails, used in most countries.
