Travelling by train in office traffic in Sri Lanka - problems and a proposed solution

Travelling by train in office traffic in Sri Lanka - problems and a proposed solution

I travel by train quite regularly - that's how I go to work, in fact. I use it because it's faster than travelling by road, and is the only real practical way to get to work on time. I am sure there's quite a few people who use it for the same reason.

However, that does not mean that it doesn't come with a lot - and I mean a lot of problems.

The problems

The first, of course, is overcrowding. If you ever get on a train during the office traffic - ~06:20 to 08:30 or so in the morning, and about 04:00 to 07:00 in the evening, your options would be to be packed like sardines in a can, or to hang on to dear life on the footboard.

The second is the utter inability of the system to deal with any kind of failure, and the tendency for those failures to propagate through the entire system. For instance, a train broke down on the main line on the 26th (Tuesday), resulting in delays propagating all the way to the coastal line. The same thing happened on 29th (Friday), when two trains broke down simultaneously on the main line and Puttalam line (Murphy's law, anyone?), causing delays on the coastal line, again. Both these trains were to destinations on the coastal line (Ratmalana and Panadura).

This lack of robustness is a serious problem, given that many trains in service are quite ancient.

The cause

The cause is the chaotic mess that is our railway system.

There are three types of trains - slow, express, and semi-express. The slow train stops at all stations. However, it is literally slow as signals appear to have it out for this poor creature. The express or intercity stops at a few select locations - usually rather large stations along its route. They usually have priority. The last is a breed that it increasing in numbers - the semi-express. The semi-express is a cross between the slow and the express, being express between certain stations and slow between others (say, express from fort to Veyangoda and slow beyond).

The infrastructure is as follows: there are four tracks from Fort to Maradana, and three from Maradana to Ragama. There are two tracks from Fort to Wadduwa, Ragama to Rambukkana (according to the map, but I'm not sure), and Ragama to Ja-ela. The rest, including the Kelaniweli line that runs right through Colombo, are single track.

Thanks to these limitations and a firefighting approach to passenger transport, the Sri Lankan railway system has settled into a well choreographed dance of sorts to keep all its trains moving. There are express trains to Jaffna, Kandy, and various other destinations leaving Colombo during office traffic, and these have to be sent to their destinations as fast as possible. On top of that, there are multiple office trains coming in/going out. Some of these are semi-express, so they have to be sent before the slow trains, lest the semi-express has to stop at all stations.

And, therein lies the issue. Thanks to this dance, it is nearly impossible to add more trains, as any more will take away any advantage that the semi-express and express may have. To pull off this circus, some ridiculous steps have been taken - like that one train that stops at all stations up to Panadura except four random stations, which is preceded by another to Moratuwa that stops at all stations up to Bambalapitiya and at two of the stations that the other will miss. I could not figure out the reason for this one yet. The 05:18 pm from Fort (starts somewhere on the southern line) misses Wellawatta (and only that) , in order to make way for an express that follows it.

Further, this results in more delays for slow trains. Many slow trains on the main line and Puttalam line hold at Ragama for their express or semi-express counterpart to overtake them, even if said express gets five to ten minutes late, since there is simply no way to manage the track otherwise.

The Solution

These issues can be solved using the existing infrastructure. Perhaps, you will need more trains. The solution is as follows.

1. There will be no express / semi-express trains during office traffic.

Please put the pitchforks down and hear me out.

The point about express trains is clear enough, I hope - The train to Jaffna at seven odd isn't going to get there until about mid-day, and very few people will be travelling on it with a real time constraint. The express does not have to leave at that time. It can leave after the office traffic has cleared, or it can leave before - since one can always nap on an express without any fear of missing your stop.

I, too, am a regular traveller on the semi-express. However, the amount of resources that it consumes it terms of track time is simple too much. Most of these trains are either double power sets or very long trains these days, and yet they are always filled to capacity. It's not possible to make these trains any bigger to solve the overcrowding issue. One can't simple add more of them, since they miss stops and something has to hit those stations as well. They also cost a lot in terms of robustness, since they cross several sections of track.

2. No train shall cross track sections, especially during busy hours.

What the system lacks is defined sections of track. Ideally, the sections should be: Fort to Ragama, Fort to Wadduwa, Ragama to Rambukkana (or Veyangoda, or Gampaha, depending on the number of trains available), etc. I hope you see the pattern - break track sections along the logical dividing points, based on infrastructure or traffic volume. That way, a failure at one point won't affect the entire system.

3. Slow trains at a set frequency on a loop

The final part of the solution is to run slow trains on these track sections on a loop, at a set frequency. For example, you could have a slow train from Ragama to fort every five minutes during peak hours. The same train could return (as a slow train) to Ragama, to start its next trip. You can also send an occasional express through on this track section, as you have a third track, or operate an express service between Fort an Ragama using a single train.

For two track sections, again, you can have slow trains at fixed intervals, so a train reaches any given station in both directions every five to ten minutes. There is really no way to deal with single track sections other than the way they do it now, though.

Then there is the other recurring issue - the night mail that actually turns up at seven in the morning. If that happens, the solution is simple - it will become a slow train and fall in line. It is inconvenient for that particular train, but it is for the greater good.

The theory is that there would be a train available regardless of when you actually come to the station. This will stagger the traffic, so to speak - schools start at seven thirty, and starting times for work vary from as early as eight to as late as nine thirty - and any given train will not be that crowded.

This method would also help traffic at railway crossings, especially if the two trains could be timed to arrive almost simultaneously. If a train breaks down, the two sides will have to be staggered, but could probably be managed with minimal disruption as well. Most importantly, it will not result in a cascade of delays and cancelled trains throughout the entire system.

Some final thoughts

There is a lot of room for improvement in the current system, and these are not the only issues (has anyone else gotten into a train and thought, 'this is pointed in the right direction but I wonder where it is going.'). However, this is a major issue, which is why I decided to write an article on it.

The proposed system would make my daily commute to work more complicated, true, but I believe that, overall, it will cut travel times. Travel time isn't just the time spent on the train (though under current circumstances, it is the most unpleasant), it also includes time spent at the station. All of us have been to the station as the train we aimed for was leaving, forcing us to wait another half an hour to an hour for the next train to finally show up (if it was on time).

Further, there is the sheer exhaustion caused by the journey, leaving all of us needing some time to recover before we can actually start working productively. This system would also increase the comfort level of the journey.

Ideally, it should be possible to implement this at other times as well, but the expresses still have to operate, and we have to use the infrastructure we have, at least in the short term. Still, regular trains during high-traffic times would solve the worst of the problems.

I doubt anyone will take this proposal seriously, but I suppose one can dream that one day, one's commute will be a commute instead of a test of willpower.

Tell me what you think in the comments below.

Until next time,
Falcon-15-X-C