The Hindu : Front Page : The train returns after 12 years

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 09, 2007
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The train returns after 12 years

Special Correspondent

It’s not an ordinary service, says Lalu Prasad

Minister announces a reward of Rs. 10 lakh
to Railway engineers
Velu promises to consider the demands of
the region

MANGALORE: A 12-year wait for the people of this region ended at 3 p.m. on Saturday as Railway Minister Lalu Prasad flagged off the new train between Mangalore and Yeshwanthpur.

Commuters by the special train that was flagged off to mark the occasion as well as the crowd numbering more than 1,000 people cheered and clapped as the train began to move.

The train’s movement could be seen on the giant screen specially erected close to the dias in a huge pandal where Mr. Prasad pressed a button to turn the signal from red to green. People were excited to see the amber light turn green and the train started its 508-km journey towards Bangalore.

The metre gauge line was suspended for conversion in September, 1995.

The Railway Minister said, in a lighter vein, that he had come to realise that the bus lobby and the truck lobby were opposed to the railway line besides the engineering difficulties railwaymen encountered in the gauge conversion work in the steep ghat sections. “What you have got is not an ordinary line,” he said hinting at the hurdles it had to cross.

He announced a reward of Rs. 10 lakh to the railway engineers, who built the broad gauge track through a tough terrain.

Describing the Railways turn around and profit of Rs. 20,000 crore as “jaadu”, he said a lot more was about to happen. He promised a dedicated double-line freight movement corridor from Howrah to Mumbai to Chennai and back to Howrah to decongest the saturated main lines. Minister of State for Railways R. Velu also promised to look into the demands of the region and stated that more trains would be introduced in “due course of time.”

Earlier, BJP State unit president D.V. Sadananda Gowda summed up the railway-related needs of the region. Chairman of Administrative Reforms Commission M. Veerappa Moily, Union Minister for State for Labour Oscar Fernandes and Congress leader Janardhana Poojary were present.

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