IR to increase sectional speed of 53 route

Indian Railways (IR) will increase the sectional speed of 53 important broad-gauge routes across the country to 130 km per hour. The move is expected to reduce the travel time and enhance the operational efficiency of the trains and also give a boost to freight operations. IR has already enhanced the maximum speed to 130 km per hour for a majority of 9,890 km length of Golden Quadrilateral – Golden Diagonal (GQ-GD) route. In Southern Railways /South Western Railways, sectional speed will be increased the following routes — Arakkonam-Mysore (436 km), Thiruvananthapuram Central-Kozhikode (400 km), Chennai Egmore-Madurai (496 km), Jolarpet-Bengaluru (148 km), Bengaluru-Mysuru (138 km), Kannur-Kozhikode (89 km), Thiruvananthapuram-Madurai (301 km) and Jolarpet-Coimbatore (289 km). The respective general managers have been instructed to improve infrastructure to achieve the speed potential by the end of 2023-24.