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| Pic By: Prithvi Raj |
The Konkan Railway is an epic undertaking unparalleled in
the history of India, undoubtedly the most expansive and biggest infrastructure
project the country has undertaken (and completed) since independence. The
Konkan Railway effectively connected the western coast of India with the rest
of the country, primarily Mangalore and the rest of the Konkan or
Karavalli Coastal regions of Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra with Mumbai and
secondarily the entire state of Kerala with Mumbai and beyond to Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Delhi etc a point-to-point straight line. The Konkan Railway spans
738 kilometers through the states of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, its
end points being just after Roha railway station (75 km south of Panvel in the
suburbs of Mumbai) in Maharashtra and just after Thokur railway station in southern Karnataka,
just before Mangalore at the junction with Southern Railway’s line from the
Panambur yard. It passes through some of the greatest scenic spots in this
part of the World.
Volumes have already been written about the Konkan Railway
and the stunning, undulating and breath-taking scenic beauty it offers to
travelers all along the way. It must rank among one of those
“must-see-places-before-you-die” along with such natural wonders as the
Southern coast of Spain, the Bahamas, the Amazon rain forests, the Fjords of Norway, the Alps of Switzerland, the Mediterranean and so on. The
western coast of India is rich in scenic beauty from Kanyakumari in the south,
the entire state of Kerala, the spellbinding Karavalli coastlines of Karnataka
which include spots like Gokarna and Maravanthe, the entire state of Goa whose natural abundance is already
well-known and the ruggedly beautiful coasts of Maharashtra. The coast is
wedged between the Arabian sea and the majestic Western Ghats which immediately rise after the coast,
trapping the South West Monsoon, forcing it to pound the coast every year.
The incomparable natural beauty of the coast can be attributed to
this.
Background
of the Konkan Railway:
The Konkan Railway (KR) was the last
missing link for a complete Indian Railway map.
Before KR, there was no railway line on half of India’s western coast and this stood
out like a gaping hole on India’s railway map. Our railway lines metaphorically
act as beams and pillars of support holding the country together and the
absence of a railway line on the Western coast appeared as a missing a line of
support or reinforcement on the left flank of the Peninsula. And
more practically, there was no sensible means of connectivity between the
two port cities of Mangalore and Mumbai which lie on the same coast! However,
Goa was connected by a railway line since as far back as 1886, when the British
built a line from Vasco (to serve the Mormugao port)
inland crossing the tough Braganza Ghats via
Dudhsagar Falls to connect to the then M&SM Railway’s Hubli
– Poona line at Londa, another marvelous engineering feat nonetheless. This
line is today operated by South Western Railway and runs parallel to the Konkan
Railway for a short distance between Madgaon and Majorda.
People who wanted to go from Mangalore
or Kerala to Goa, Mumbai or beyond to Gujarat those days were forced to go on a
circuitous South India darshan via the
Salem-Bangalore-(Dharwad-Belgaum)/(Gulbarga-Solapur)-Pune or
Salem-Jolarpettai-Tirupati-Raichur-Daund-Pune rail routes ending up traveling
2200 km and spending 3-4 days in place of 930 km and 17 hours today
via the Konkan Railway. It sounds comical, but those days people had
to go from Mangalore to Mumbai via Chennai! Another option was to get
to Birur, Kadur, Arsikere, Mysore or even Bangalore from Mangalore by (almost
non-existent) road through the Malnad jungle and
then board a train from there to Mumbai. If you are thinking “Why didn’t they
take the road?”, there were no roads then either. The (pathetic) NH-17 (NH-66) which
runs along the west coast from Ernakulam to Panvel, also known as the Mumbai –
Goa road on that stretch and carries all the traffic of the west coast was
built only during the mid 1970s. A continuous motorable road simply did not
exist before that. So how did people from Mangalore get to Mumbai? Yes, by
ship! Connectivity was even worse for people further up the coast.
History of the Konkan Railway :
The history of the Konkan Railway
goes as back as 1907 when
railway lines reached Mangalore as the terminus of the main line from Madras
via Shoranur. The idea of extending the line along the Konkan coast to Bombay
was of course examined by the British, but they disregarded it as “impossible
to construct” given the undulating, rugged, violent and unpredictable terrain
of the region. In addition there weren’t any important ports along the route,
the area was sparsely populated and they would encounter diplomatic
difficulties as the line would have to pass through the then (hostile) Portuguese
enclave of Goa. The idea was mooted by many since then but always put in the
cold storage, though everyone knew that the line would have to be constructed
eventually. After independence and as Mumbai grew, a line was laid from Diva to
Panvel in 1964 and later extended south to Apta in 1966. In 1964 itself, seeing
the potential for a line south of Apta, the then railway minister Sri
Panampilli Govinda Menon suggested the idea of extending it southwards for a
“western coastal railway”. His suggestion was largely ignored then but not
forgotten. Demands for a West Coast line was also continuously raised by
Barrister Nath Pai MP, parliamentarian and freedom fighter who hailed form
Vengurla on the southern end of the Maharashtra Konkan, who actively voiced the
concerns of the region. The project is thought to be his brainchild.
The idea was revived by Prof. Madhu
Dantavate when he became Railway Minister in 1977. In 1984, 20 years after the
line reached Apta, Prof. Dantavate sanctioned a line from Apta to Roha (opened
in 1986) which would later become the starting point for the Konkan Railway,
though that was not the intention then. As pressure built up, Indian Railways
decided to build a line from Mangalore to Madgaon, the “easier” stretch.
Southern Railway (SR) was entrusted to carry out an in-depth survey for
this and in March 1985, it was decided to extend the line for the
entire stretch of the West Coast till Roha where it would connect to the
existing line to Mumbai. The final survey report was completed in 1988 and SR
called it the “Konkan Railway” for the first time. The project finally got
legs when Mr.George Fernandes became RM in 1989. Hailing from Udupi on the
Konkan Coast, he had a passionate desire to see the project through and had a
fairly good idea about what he faced. As the project needed heavy funding and
the route was of national importance, it was decided to establish an
independent company for the construction and management of the new line outside
the scope of the Indian Railways. Konkan
Railway Corporation Ltd. was hence founded in 1990 with E.Sreedharan
as CMD. History was to be made in 8 years. Work started from both ends at the
same time.
Building the Konkan Railway :
Sreedharan & Co. must have gotten
the jitters when it became clear to them what was the kind of terrain they were
dealing with. The geography was extremely tough and unforgiving with steep
cliffs, deep gorges, uneven grassy and rocky plateaus, swampy marshes, thick
jungle, broad rivers, wet hills and so on, especially in Maharashtra where the
Western Ghats reach directly to the sea. The geography changed every few
kilometers and the builders had to cut through hard volcanic rock, soft and wet
clay, tropical jungle and loose sand. Adding to this was the wild fury nature
unleashed every now and then with violent monsoons and tropical thunderstorms
causing cave-ins, landslides, flash floods and what not. Tunnel cave-ins, water
gushes, hill collapses and many more
disasters marred the
construction
The line was to be designed to enable
trains to run at 160 kph, which meant the track should be as level as possible
with gradients (inclines) and curves kept to a minimum for trains to maintain
speed. The only way for this to be achieved was to build the line straight
through, despite the undulating nature of the terrain. This would mean
constructing a lot of bridges, tunnels and embankments, and rock and earth
to be cut down (like this) to allow the track to maintain its level
run. 91 tunnels were dug, the longest at 5.6 kilometers. All the rivers and
streams resulted in 2000 bridges. Tunnel digging equipment was imported from
Sweden to dig many of these tunnels. But the real
challenge were nine tunnels which
had to be dug through wet, soft and loose clayey soil, which the equipment
could not tackle and had to be painstakingly dug by hand, meter by meter. Some
of these tunnels would cave in as soon as they were dug and had to be dug all
over again. Work had to be entirely stopped on many occasions due to violent
monsoons and the alignment was changed numerous times. Many were injured and 10
people lost their lives building the Konkan Railway! The unflappable team
pushed forward without losing heart even when faced with criticism
and skepticism from all around. Work would continue day and night
with efficiency reminding those of the British times and the entire stretch,
tunnels and all was ready in phases from 1993 to 1998, in just 8 years after work
had begun! What a triumph!
Train Services on Konkan
Railways :
As expected, the first stretch to be
completed was the Thokur – Udupi stretch in the south on March 1993, followed
by the Roha – Veer stretch in the north on June 1993. Incidentally, both these
stretches were 47 km long! The first train to run on the Konkan railway was a
Mangalore – Udupi passenger train on March 20, 1993. Lines from both ends
reached the Pernem tunnel in
North Goa (also the border between Maharashtra and Goa) in 1997, which was the
last remaining bottleneck in the project and a formidable one at that. The
construction on this tunnel had started in 1992 but 5 years later was yet to be
completed. It was to be dug through a clay-hill prone to water-logging and
would cave in and flood repeatedly without warning.
This 1.5 km stretch held the entire 738 km project to ransom for more than a
year and was the biggest
frustration for the
builders. In the end, it took 6 years
and 11 lives to
complete it. By then, services had started from Mangalore to Madgaon (0021/22
Express – no longer runs today) and from Mumbai to Sawantwadi Road (0111/0112
Express) which is today’s Konkan Kanya Express. With the completion of the
Pernem tunnel through services from Mumbai to Mangalore could finally start.
The first train to run from Mumbai to Madgaon through the tunnel finally
bridging the gap between Maharashtra and Goa was the 0111 Mumbai CST – Madgaon
Express, which would become today’s Konkan Kanya Express.
The train was flagged off from Mumbai on 25th
January 1998 and
arrived at Madgaon the next day as the first official service on the Konkan
Railway!
Here is
a railfan account of that first journey! :
On March 1, 1998, the Bombay
Kurla (LTT) – Mangalore/Cochin Netravati (Cochin – Kurla) Express
which used to run via Palakkad – KR Puram (Bangalore) – Dharmavaram –
Gulbarga – Pune started running via the Konkan, making it the first scheduled
service that ran the length of the Konkan Railway. The Netravati today runs
till Trivandrum. The prestigious Trivandrum Rajdhani which used to run via
Palakkad – CHENNAI – Vijayawada – Nagpur – Gwalior was re-routed through Konkan
Railway from April 1 1998 and a new “Matsyagandha Express” was flagged off from
Mangalore to Mumbai (LTT) on May 1, 1998. The Mangalore – Palakkad – Renigunta
– Vijayawada – Nagpur – Delhi Hazrat Nizamuddin Kerala Mangala Express was also
diverted via the Konkan and was extended to Ernakulam, converted into a daily
train and was renamed the Mangala Lakshwadeep Express. A new Mumbai – Madgaon
Express, the Mandovi Express was also introduced. Subsequently, all trains to
Gujarat from Kerala were diverted via the Konkan and several new ones were introduced.
The latest important introductions on the Konkan Railway are the Kochuveli –
LTT Garib Rath, The Ernakulam – Nizamuddin Duronto, the Ernakulam – LTT
Duronto, the Madgaon – Mumbai CST Jan Shatabdi Express, the Mangalore – Mumbai
Superfast and several long distance weekly Expresses like the Marusagar Express
and the Ernakulam – Madgaon Express. Scroll down for the timetable of all
trains running on the Konkan Railway.
The Konkan Railway – Facts and
Figures :
The Konkan Railway is a 738 km long
non-electrified single line Broad Gauge Railway of the Indian Railways with
design speed is for 160 kilometers/hour, though no trains run that fast on this
line. The fastest train on the line is the H.Nizamuddin – Thiruvananthapuram
Rajdhani Express which touches 110 kmph on some stretches. The main locomotives
doing duty on the line are the WDP4, WDG4, WDM3A, WDM3D, WDP3A, the WDM2 and
its variants. The line has 59 stations with a depot at Verna and yards at
Madgaon. South Western Railway’s Londa – Madgaon – Vasco line runs parallel
with the KR line for a short distance at Madgaon. The line has 91 tunnels
totaling 83 kilometers with the longest being the Karbude tunnel 5.6 kilometers
long. It has 1998 bridges (179 major bridges and 1819 minor bridges) spanning rivers,
streams and other waterbodies including the huge Mandovi, Zuari and Sharavati
rivers. The bridge across the Sharavati is also the Konkan’s longest at 2085.4
m. The Konkan Railway also boasts of the 64 meter tall Panval
Nadi Viaduct near
Ratnagiri, the second highest bridge in Asia, a visible example of
the ingenuity of the line and the dedication of the builders. It
connects two hills and has 12 spans and 10 pillars, 6 of which are taller than
the Qutub Minar! The train leaves a tunnel, runs straight onto the viaduct
which then runs right into the next tunnel! If you want perspective, here is one of the pillars as seen where it meets
the ground.
The KR line closely follows the NH-17
and the alignment seems to be chosen to be near the highway at all times. No
point of the Konkan Railway line is more than 22 kilometers away from the
NH-17 and on an average the line is within two to five kilometers of the
highway. It crosses the highway at numerous points but there are no
level crossings! The NH-17 is no less a driver’s delight. Watch out for those
trucks and Volvos though.
The track passes though a
geologically sensitive region with heavy rainfall and frequent landslides,
floods etc, so disruptions in service during the monsoons are commonplace even
with all the technologically superior safety checks in place. In fact, KR is
the only railway in India with a “monsoon timetable” in force from June to
October when trains are run at reduced speed and as much as
possible during the daytime with increased caution due to the volatile
nature of the terrain. Sadly, there have been two fatal accidents on the
line, once in 2003 when a
holiday special derailed near Vaibhavwadi in Maharashtra after a landslide
fell on it, killing 51 and in 2004 when the Matsyagandha Express derailed in
Karanjadi, also in Maharashtra after hitting boulders which fell on the track,
killing 14. Every year during monsoons some issue or other happens on the line
resulting in services getting suspended or rerouted.
Konkan Railway – The Experience
and the Legacy :
The line is almost saturated today
and it would be a good time to start doubling the line. However,
electrification of this line does not seem to be a good idea given the nature
of the terrain and the diesel beasts are doing a great job. And I would say out
of personal experience that the Konkan Railway have the most customer friendly
officials in all of Indian Railway. KRCL continues to exist today as a SPV and
a subsidiary company of the Indian Railways and not as a railway zone. The
Konkan Railway is a sign that things can actually work if one puts their heart
to it even in this country. It is not just a railway line, it is a symbol of
hope. In a country where it takes 4 years to complete a 500 metre flyover, this
was just simply out of the world! But the fact remains that the project was a
success because governmental processes were kept out of it. Maharashtra, Goa,
Karnataka and Kerala pooled in money and KRCL was given a free hand to bypass
government procedures and use their own heads to build the line. Another reason
the project could be completed in such a short time was timely land
acquisition, facilitated by officials who were able to convince landowners of
the importance of this project and the benefits it would bring them. Prompt
delivery of compensation also helped with cheques being hand-delivered to land
owners in many cases. But there were self-important detractors who tried to
scuttle the project for their own self-interest, like in Goa, where landowners
and “environmental activists” went to court demanding the line be diverted
inland through forests instead of populated areas. If standard IR operating
procedures were to be followed, this line wouldn’t have been finished in 50
years.
The Konkan line is world-famous and
majorly known for the spellbinding scenery it offers to its
travelers. Those who wail that the Indian Railways lost all its romance
when the British left should be bundled up and down on the Konkan Railway a
couple of times. From the Paddy fields and watery plains of
Mangalore-Udupi to the beaches and green rolling hills on the Uttara Kannada
stretch, the marshes and numerous breath-taking bridges and glimpses of the sea
in Goa and the tunnels, waterfalls, jungles and viaducts of Maharashtra where
the trains play hide-and-seek among mountains and bridges and forests… A train
journey along this route can leave one with many memories worth infinitely more
than all that money spent in soulless resorts or polluted hill stations or on
“holidays” spent with stress and tension. Get yourself a confirmed seat, settle
in, leave your worries aside for the next 16 hours and relax, look out of your
window, feel the wind of the Konkan on your face and let yourself be caressed
in the lap of Mother Nature. There are no responsibilities for you on the
train, no bosses, targets, deadlines, EMIs or traffic jams. I cannot
explain it all in here, these things can only be experienced in person and in
real. The journey will delight you, the child in you, the railfan in you and
the romantic in you. And to experience that in a more profound way, treat
yourself and your love to a First Class AC coupe on the mighty Raj or on one of
the Durontos. It will be a journey that neither of you will forget anytime soon
The real heroes are the indomitable E.Sreedharan and his team, especially the poor
souls who lost their lives building the line, they who braved all odds to make this dream a reality and
changed live lives of millions of people. The entire country will always be
indebted to them. Just imagine what their sense of achievement would have been
when the first train ran on the line! Imagine the sense of pride they get
whenever they look back at the Konkan Railway and tell the world “Hell yeah,
baby, I built this!”, something that very few lucky people can say and lay
claim to. Now all that remains is for KR to exploit the tourism potential
of the Konkan Railway. If it were the guys from Kerala Tourism, they would have
tagged the Konkan Railway as… God’s
Own Railway.