Freight neglected in Colombo Suburban Railway Project
While electrification and modernisation of railways is much needed for the development of the country’s logistics sector, freight has been completely neglected in the Colombo Suburban Railway Project. Also while the initial ground work on the project has already commenced, no backup plan has been prepared to face the upcoming power crisis.
A feasibility study on the Asian Development Bank-funded project was presented by Rodolfo Martinez, consultant to the railway electrification and modernization project of Sri Lanka at the 15th John Diandas Memorial Lecture organised by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport at the Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka recently.
Mr. Martinez stated that the Western Province Megapolis Plan expects the daily rail passenger demand to increase to 1.2 million by 2025 and 1.4 million by 2035 from the 300,000 figure recorded in 2016. The electric railway plan serves five different corridors in Colombo and additional tracks would be necessary in some sections as the demand grows.
The first phase of the project would be a 70 km section from Panadura to Veyangoda with 23 stations. The station to station commercial speed would be around 40 km per hour, once modernized and electrified, he noted. During the panel discussion Moratuwa University Department of Transport and Logistics Professor, Amal Kumarage pointed out that the project has completely neglected the money-making freight component and only addressed the loss making-passenger transportation over the years and it still continues. He stressed that railway connectivity should be made to the main airports and harbours to ease freight movement.
Noting that the numbers projected under the Megapolis plan seems to be unrealistic and not validated, Prof. Kumarage elaborated, “The Megapolis project has based its projections off a study done several years ago when growth of demand for railroad had been high, and in the years since, the demand growth for it has been much lower.”
The power crisis is one of the biggest problems the country is about to face very soon, stated Energy Consultant Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya. “While only one per cent of the current supply is required for railway electrification, there is no backup plan to face the expected power crisis. Renewable energy sources could only be used as a supplementary source of power and cannot be a backup,” noted Dr. Siyambalapitiya.