Chennai: With the railways deciding to convert Tondiarpet as the fourth terminal, the plan to convert the heritage railway station, Royapuram, as the city’s fourth railway terminal stands discarded.
General manager Vashishtha Johri, without elaborating much, told reporters on Friday that Tondiarpet would be converted as the fourth terminal.
“The work to convert Tambaram as a coaching terminal is almost complete,” he added.
During a feasibility study for the making Royapuram a terminal, it was found that railways would need more areas of land, including some from Stanley Medical College. But state government was not ready to offer so much land to the railways.
Johri was the chief guest at the annual day event of Ashraya School for differently-abled-run by the Southern Railway Women’s Headquarters Organization.
Back in 2014, the then railway minister Sadananda Gowda had announced the conversion of Royapuram as a terminal.
The Royapuram terminal would help ease the load on Chennai Central and Egmore and a terminal in north Chennai would be help for northbound trains.
According to railway sources, Tondiarpet, which is seven kilometer north of Chennai Central, can also become a full-sized terminal, as there is ample land on the western and eastern side of the station at Tondiarpet for the construction of stabling lines.
