Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), Southern Circle, Abhai Kumar Rai conducted a preliminary inspection of the newly laid 2.26 km railway line between Padil-Kulashekara.
The inspection is a prelude to the signal disconnection (pre-non-interlocked working) and track connection work (non-interlocked working) to connect the new line with existing railway lines as part of the doubling work in the section.
The inspection using a motor trolley began from Padil station yard. After inspecting the curve, minor bridge, point, height cutting and tunnel, Rai ended the inspection at Jokkatte station.
During the inspection, the CRS was accompanied by Rajendra Prasad Jingar, Chief Administrative Officer (Construction, Ernakulam); Niranjan Naik, Chief Engineer, (Construction, Ernakulam); Trilok Kothari, Divisional Railway Manager, Palakkad Division and other higher officials from Southern Railways.
Padil-Kulasekhara doubling work for a length of 2.26 km (including a new tunnel of 780 m on the Up line) is the fourth and final stage of 19 km patch doubling work between Mangaluru Junction and Panambur.
The new tunnel (No 4B) is the highlight of the project. This is the fourth railway tunnel in Palakkad Division jurisdiction (Other tunnels are in Kulashekara, between Kasaragod -Kottikulam)
With the doubling in the Padil-Kulasekhara section, a bottleneck in train operations that existed with the short single line section (2.26 km) will get eliminated.
Presently, coaching trains were held up at Mangaluru Junction and Jokkatte for want of passage, especially when trains are running late.
Freight trains are to be moved between the coaching trains whenever a path is available. Thus, freight trains were frequently detained at Panambur and Jokkatte stations. With the introduction of doubling, the detention of these freight trains will be minimised.