It might sound a
cliché but suffice to say that railways are the lifeline of Indian economy and
society would be an understatement in many ways. Almost every Indian town or
taluka place have a railway station within 20-30 kms from their place. The only
exceptions perhaps would be those in the hills in the Himalayas or the North
East and the islands. Railway transport has been critical in bringing together
people at multiple levels. Distances have reduced psychologically. It is said
in the days of Madras Presidency, the introduction of railways made
relationships expand to distant regions. Girls would be given in marriage to
grooms in nearby villages, the reason being easy to stay connected. Once the
railways came around, it was easy to stay connected even to distant places
(relatively speaking from those times) as the girl’s family could visit her
frequently and vice versa.
Railways in
India essentially not only carried freight and military but also was means to
transport passengers. It became easy to commute to different places for
purposes of work, business, social gatherings, religious obligations and
tourism among many other things. In India, the concept of railway operations
was classified into express trains and passenger trains. The former had limited
stops while the latter stopped at almost all stations on the way. The charm of
the slow trains was captured in many a novel and movies. Given the vast
population of India resided in the rural, these slow passenger trains became
the staple bread and butter for the local economies. The express trains that
skipped many a stops usually operated on main lines and for long distances. In
fact, some of the express trains too had numerous stops. Most railway lines
except for the major rarely had any express train. For instance, the line
between Gadag and Solapur did see an express train till around mid-1970s when
the Gol Gumbaz express was introduced between Hubli and Solapur. Similarly the
line between Hubli and Guntakal part of the railway connection between Goa on
the West Coast and Machilipatnam on the east coast did not have any express
trains till around mid 1970s when the Vijayanagar express was introduced. The
second part of the line between Guntakal and Guntur too did not have an express
train till perhaps till late 1970s. Branch lines were bereft of any express
trains till very recently.
Leave short
distances, there were very long distance passengers too. In the nineteenth
century, there were passengers running between Delhi and Calcutta (now
Kolkata). Passenger trains between Bombay (now Mumbai) and Delhi continue to
run even after independence. There used to be parcel passenger trains that used
to start their journey late night, usually the last train of the day. Many
cities were connected with each other mostly by the passenger trains.
Post-independence, slowly, these passengers began to give way to express
trains. There were and are many express trains which are only express in name
but run as passengers in terms of stoppages. There are some trains which have
been designated as passengers in some sections. However, the tendency was to
convert into express any long distance passengers. Furthermore, the passenger
trains that had their journey mostly at night were made expresses but many such
overnight passengers continued to exist. There were long distance passenger
trains like Bhopal-Jodhpur, Pune-Nizamabad, Hubli-Vijayawada among others. In
recent times, many of these passenger trains began to get converted to express
trains among which were the Bhopal-Jodhpur among others. The logic sounded
simple. The fares were low for passenger trains and thus yielded low revenues.
The volumes could not make up the losses for per unit revenues. Therefore, the
only option was to increase the fares. Yet given the political dimensions to
the fare increase, passenger train fares have rarely been increased. There are
occasions where those fares have remained stagnant for decades. A nice way to
circumvent the same was to convert them into express trains. Secondly, many
passenger stoppages would yield low revenues since the footfalls were very low.
The cost of making train stop and start at every station is high. It does also
create a bottleneck in terms of passage of other trains. The slow passenger
train often becomes a constraint for the faster trains that follow it from
behind.
In the context,
the cost benefit analysis is adverse towards all-stop passenger trains. Yet,
these all stop trains have considerable importance for short distances in
ensuring commuters reach their place of work fast. As commuter trains, these
have lot of advantages. Therefore, they are good revenue spinners at short
distances in peak hours. Yet most of the travellers in these times would be
regular commuters and thus in good probability they would have a monthly pass
or seasonal tickets with them. These tickets carry the same fare both for
express and passenger trains. The seasonal ticket holders give railways assured
revenues. Therefore in this context, the short distance passengers need to have
these all-stop trains. The current model in the post-COVID era is to convert
all long distance passenger trains into express trains. The exceptions will be
those which operate for short distances. The railways have defined 200 kms or
less distance covered as short distances. While in principle the idea sounds
good, in practice, there are few grey areas. Some passenger train might travel
higher distances but essentially are commuter trains in part. These trains have
to be preserved in terms of their character. What needs is not the blanket
conversion of passenger trains to express trains but conversion on selective
basis. The logic again would be simple. In converting passenger trains into
expresses, what needs to be understood is the passenger profile of these trains.
Those trains that travel beyond the 200 km limit must retain the passenger
status if the smaller stations have a good clientele and serves the local
commuters. They can be converted to express only if eliminating stoppages and
reduction in the time taken for travel is considerable. The mere conversion
into express without eliminating most of the stoppages and without any
significant reduction in the time taken for travel would be viewed purely as a
money making exercise. There are stations which have hardly one passenger
stopping and they might get converted into pure stopping or overtaking station
in case they lose the stoppage of the existing train. This is possible if there
are very few footfalls. On the whole, the objective must be to ensure the
passenger profile of trains be considered rather than distance taken when
determining the all-stoppage passenger getting the tag of express train.
Comments
Post a Comment