# Thiruvananthapuram railway division

Thiruvananthapuram Railway Division (TVC) is one of the six administrative divisions in Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. It has its headquarters at Thiruvananthapuram. It was formed on 2 October 1979, which serves the eight districts of southern part of Kerala, Kanyakumari district. With 104 stations in its territorial jurisdiction, it is the fourth largest out of six divisions in Southern Railway. It is the southernmost railway division of India and manages 625 km of route track and 108 railway stations in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The major stations of the division are Thiruvananthapuram Central, Ernakulam Junction,Kollam Junction,Thrissur,Alappuzha,Kottayam, Ernakulam Town, Chengannur, Kayamkulam, Aluva, Nagercoil Junction, Kanniyakumari, Changanasseri, Tiruvalla, Kochuveli, Varkala, Mavelikara, Angamaly and Karunagappally .

## Major routes

* Kollam–Thiruvananthapuram trunk line
* Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari Line
* Thiruvananthapuram-Ernakulam
* Ernakulam-Alappuzha-Kayamkulam
* Ernakulam-Kottayam-Kayamkulam line
* ICTT Vallarpadom Rail Link
* Sabari Railway line (Planned)
* Balaramapuram-Vizhinjam Thiruvananthapuram Seaport (Planned)
* Thakazhi-Thiruvalla (Project Abandoned)
* Kottayam-Madurai-Ernakulam (Thripunithura-Muvattupuzha, Idukki. Project abandoned due to lack of interest)
* Airport line (Connecting Ernakulam Junction with the International Airport through a new halt station. The foundation stone was laid in 2010. Project abandoned due to lack of interest and land acquisition problems).

## Stations

The list includes the stations under the Thiruvananthapuram railway division and their station category.
| Category of station | No. of stations | Names of stations |
| NSG-1 Category | 0 | - |
| NSG-2 Category | 5 | Thiruvananthapuram Central, Ernakulam Junction, Thrissur, Kollam Junction, Ernakulam Town |
| NSG-3 Category | 10 | Kochuveli (Thiruvananthapuram North), Aluva, Kottayam, Chengannur, Nagercoil Junction, Kayamkulam Junction, Alappuzha, Kanniyakumari, Varkala Sivagiri,Tiruvalla |
| NSG-4 Category | 5 | Changanasseri, Karunagappalli,Tripunithura, Angamaly, Guruvayur |
| NSG-5 Category | 18 | Nagercoil town, Mavelikara etc. |
| NSG-6 Category | 27 | Nemom (Thiruvananthapuram South), Pudukad etc. |
| HG 1 Category | 0 | - |
| HG 2 Category | 17 | Koratty Angadi, Divine Nagar |
| HG 3 Category | 18 | - |
| Total | 103 | - |

## Terminal facilities

Thiruvananthapuram railway division has the credit of building and maintaining highest number of passenger terminals in any railway division within southern railway. Passenger terminals are operational at Alappuzha, Ernakulam Jn, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Kollam Jn, Nagercoil Jn, Kanyakumari and Kochuveli.
New passenger terminal is proposed at Nemom which serves as alternate satellite terminal station to the Thiruvananthapuram Central to ease the congestion other than the present Kochuveli.

## MEMU/suburban trains

A MEMU shed for Kollam was proposed in 2008's Indian Railway Budget. Kollam MEMU CarShed was formally commissioned on 1 December 2013. Currently the MEMU trains runs between Kollam Junction to Greater Cochin region via Kottayam and via Alappuzha. The fastest three phase ICF Memu cars are plying in this section. Kollam MEMU Shed is the second MEMU Shed in Kerala, which is equipped with most modern facilities. There was a plan initially to conduct suburban railway between Trivandrum Central to Chengannur and Haripad at regular intervals. But due to lack of dedicated lines and automated signalling system on the state the project was abandoned

## Freight traffic

The freight traffic marked an all-time high record with Rs 466.41 crore earnings in the financial year 2017-2018 and there is a hike of Rs 115.51 crore, when compared to the freight earnings in previous year. Kochi Refineries shared the highest freight traffic followed by FACT Kochi.

## Traffic & passenger earnings details of railway stations

| Rank | Station name | District | Area | Category | Total passengers (2022–23) | Total passengers (2023–24) | Total ticket revenue (2023–24) |
| 1 | Thiruvananthapuram Central | Thiruvananthapuram | South Kerala | NSG-2 | 1,09,08,300 | 1,27,55,166 | ₹281,16,65,871 |
| 2 | Ernakulam Junction | Ernakulam | Central Kerala | NSG-2 | 73,18,252 | 87,96,392 | ₹241,70,96,546 |
| 3 | Thrissur | Thrissur | Central Kerala | NSG-2 | 58,71,287 | 69,35,379 | ₹164,78,81,510 |
| 4 | Ernakulam Town | Ernakulam | Central Kerala | NSG-2 | 39,54,910 | 50,13,265 | ₹139,07,98,295 |
| 5 | Kollam Junction | Kollam | South Kerala | NSG-2 | 67,04,147 | 82,75,069 | ₹103,06,96,870 |
| 6 | Kottayam | Kottayam | South Kerala | NSG-3 | 32,63,160 | 40,97,682 | ₹88,89,35,513 |
| 7 | Aluva | Ernakulam | Central Kerala | NSG-3 | 34,64,482 | 41,02,821 | ₹83,19,64,389 |
| 8 | Nagercoil Junction | Kanniyakumari | South Tamil Nadu | NSG-3 | 23,13,910 | 25,66,258 | ₹79,79,04,006 |
| 9 | Chengannur | Alappuzha | South Kerala | NSG-3 | 21,52,716 | 26,87,559 | ₹64,78,55,315 |
| 10 | Kochuveli | Thiruvananthapuram | South Kerala | NSG-3 | 9,46,722 | 12,26,470 | ₹56,81,83,342 |