Ladies Special – MRTS, A kind suggestion

I believe Chennai's current strength of ladies traveling by train is low. There was talk on the Daily Newspaper that the Tambaram – Beach section will have 3 compartments for ladies and the rest common. I serious suggest that the same could be followed on the Avadi -Beach – Velachery section. I see women are hardly seated in the compartments. Imagine one more regular train on this section will be sure boost for passengers like me.

Ladies no offense meant.

Posted via email from Chennai

Does this Chennaite, respect other Chennaite – MRTS

Drunken Man sleeping on MRTS Train

Drunken Man sleeping on MRTS Train

It is very common scene in Chennai MRTS, in spite of a written communication on the sides of the entrance cum exit, people occupy the area and make other co passengers uneasy, imagine during rush hours where people want to reach their office in time, because of these dumb people neither the crowd could easily enter or exit the cabin. The worst part is they don’t care for fellow passengers.

I am not even sure whether the drunken man on this photo carries a valid ticket. By the way there is valid message which says drunken travel could attract fine and punishment.

Beware of Ticket collectors – Chennai MRTS

I had been a mute witness to this incident as I myself was shocked to see what these ticket collectors were up to. This happened few days before.

Things I noticed

1. Ticket collectors boarded the train at Mylapore station
2. Ticket collector not wearing uniform, and not even the badge. (I have seen one friendly ticket collector at Velachery Railway station in white uniform with the badge containing the name.)
3. Harsh language towards commuters, looks at everyone as a suspect. Truly, this ticket collector behaved like a super cop.

The ticket collector asked for the ticket with all the passengers, I showed him my concession pass. While my co passenger said “Pass” when he showed to the ticket collector, the concession pass was already expired.

And two other Big adult looking school children were asked for the same. Guess there were doing the +2 in some school. One with the school uniform showed the pass and the other friend didn’t have anything in hand.

It was time for the one with the school uniform to get down at the station, Our friendly ticket collector said, well how could let you friend alone. If you leave him now, he will be in jail. Poor kid, just for the bad friendship he had to tag along and be part of this wild party.

Our super cop ask all the ticket less guys to pay the fine of 1000 and odd Rupees or end up in jail kind of story.

The “concession pass” guy had enough of embarrassments

Now comes the best or heights of invasion in to privacy.
So our super cop asks the school kids for the fine amount. The ticket less traveled school guy had empty pockets and now our ticket collector ask the school uniform kid to depart with all the money he has. He ask him to pull out the wallet and asks him to open and show the same to him and the other ticket collector and he tells the kid to open the secret channel of the wallet to depart with the reserve money.

I was like shocked to see and all other commuters were all in the same state. Didn’t know what to do?

I have one silly question, if any one can answer it will be great
How much is the maximum fine which can be levied, if I did a ticket less travel?
Now I have been setting reminders on my mobile for three long days to get the concession tickets. Well there can be genuine cases that people could forget to renew their passes. I just want to avoid that embarrassments.

I can understand the way ticket collectors talk to embarrass the ticket less traveler, so as not to repeat this offense. But asking to depart with their money, was too much.

BTW (by the way) does anyone know how to apply for request to the Railway board to increase the number of trains between Beach and Avadi. I have been getting tired of looking in to the watch all the time so as not to miss the beach train or the Avadi train.

Chennai MRTS – boon or bane Software professionals

click on the image for a larger version of the photo

chennai MRTS was launched up to velachery last monday 19th of November 2007.

Well I commute to my office by using Chennai MRTS from Villivakkam ->Beach-> Velachery and back home

Things which I want to communicate to the Railway officials.

Most software companies have open office timing and most members come to office by 10.30 AM and leave late in the night back home (say average time of 8:00 PM). The train timings which have been currently offered will not meet the expectation of software professionals, who work in IT park and some more IT offices at velachery.

Connecting trains are a major problem, say Villivakkam has more trains to offer, but to the beach. It is less. Well from beach to velachery is most inconvenient, connecting trains don’t wait if the ones reach little late.

click on the image for a larger and clear version of the photo

above chennai MRTS train timing from velachery to beach station

Why Chennai MRTS amuses me?

1. Savings
2. Cost factor
3. Organized
4. Traffic
5. Pollution
6. Health

Savings – I usually commute by car or motor cycle. On an average I do 45KMS a day home->office->home. If I choose Chennai MRTS from villivakkam to beach and beach to velachery is 9RS (INR) and from velachery to beach and beach to villivakkam it is 8RS(INR) so a total of 17 INR when compared to 1& 1/2 litre of petrol on my bike and whooping 4 litres of petrol for my car say around 200 INR/day. 4000 INR for 20 days

Cost factor – If I buy a season ticket for 3 months it is only 375 INR which is close to 2 days the price of petrol for my car.

Organized – well I don’t want to be late to my office. I have to plan my day. I wake up little early than usually. My company vice president prefers to travel by bus or train or even a cycle (well he could afford to buy the expensive car and have chauffeur at his disposal, well something I am missing) . If he could manage time. I should learn, how to manage my time.

Traffic – Rain or too hot, no more worries staying in the signal. Don’t have to worry any more for the scratch on your new car. Nor have to bite the nails and carry tension. Nor get stranded for long time on signals.

Pollution – What? Unless the train passes over the coovum river or near the Petro chemical refineries
Health conscious – Because I plan my day, I drop my son to school early. Now I do little bit walking, how?

If I have walk to villivakkam station from home and from velachery station to office and back that is about 20 minutes of walking a day. Well a good exercise which I was missing all these days.

Apart from that I have started listing to some podcast or my favorite radio while traveling using my Nokia N70 mobile.

The only worry is that, will I not get more options from the Railways.

Final words: I believe chennai MRTS needs to do some kind of marketing to attract the software professionals, most probably they need to increase the number of trains plying during after peak hours and provide adequate support/connecting train timings at all the main stations (returning to home is a big problem now). Once done, they could possibly see the increase in the traffic in that route.

Do let me know your thoughts and comments, Will MRTS will be of help.

Here is a southern railways  site which has the suburban train timing. It has information about the connecting trains time table

http://www.southernrailway.org/sutt/index.php