Rajya Rani Express to stop at Kottayam

Kottayam: The Nilambur Road-Kochuveli Rajya Rani Express will stop at the Kottayam railway station from December 18.

The train reaches the Kottayam station by 2.17 am and will halt for only two minutes.

The railways had scrapped the Kottayam station during the Nilambur Road-Kochuveli journey after it was restarted as a special train.

The Kottayam stop was scrapped following the Railway Board's instruction to avoid stops during odd hours in the night.

Though the Ministry had recommended that the stops with heavy rush of passengers should be maintained, this was not followed in the case of the Kottayam station. Pointing out this, Manorama had published news reports.

After coming across the new reports, Thomas Chazhikadan MP had submitted a memorandum to the Union Railway Minister. After that steps were initiated to restore the Kottayam stop for the Nilambur train.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of passengers depended on this train to travel to Kottayam from Nilambur, Shoranur and Angadipuram regions. The railways had scrapped the stop without taking this into consideration.

However, the Kottayam stop during the train service from Kochuveli to Nilambur was not scrapped. The train, heading to Nilambur from Kochuveli, reaches Kottayam by 11.40 pm.