After a long wait of passengers and people’s representatives, the Railway Board ordered the extension of the Thiruvananthapuram-Madura Amrita Express to Rameswaram. The Amrita Express is being extended to Rameswaram instead of the Ernakulam-Rameswaram special run.
As the construction of the new Pamban bridge is going on, there is a possibility that the service will be provided up to Mandapam initially. The train will reach Rameswaram as soon as the bridge construction is completed in December.
It was pointed out that it was not possible to drive up to Rameswaram using a single rake, so the railway service was not run to Rameswaram. The reason put forward was that Rameswaram would not get enough time to clean the coaches when using a single rake.
But Southern Railway’s former Chief Passenger Transportation Manager (CPTM) T Shivakumar is finding a way around the matter. He gave a letter in 2022 showing that the Chennai-Rameswaram boat could be extended to Amrita Rameswaram by connecting it with the rake of Mail Express. He put forward the idea that the coaches of the Amrita Express arriving at Rameswaram in the afternoon would be used for the Rameswaram-Chennai service in the evening and the coaches of the train arriving at Rameswaram from Chennai in the morning would leave for Thiruvananthapuram as the Amrita Express in the afternoon. The board accepted T Shivakumar’s idea but the order is coming late now.
It will leave Thiruvananthapuram at 8.30 pm and reach Amrita Rameswaram at 1.40 pm the next day. The return train will leave Rameswaram at 1 PM and reach Thiruvananthapuram at 5 AM the next day. There is no significant change in timing between Thiruvananthapuram and Madurai.
