Walk into any railway station in the country and ask for a ticket. You will get a cardboard ticket printed by an ancient machine. This is the first sign that our railways are still stuck in the 1940s, whereas other countries have progressed to prepaid tickets and even paperless mobile ticketing. We have also been talking about electrifying the railway lines for the last 70 years, with nothing to show for it.
There has been some progress in network expansion, with a new line being started to Beliatta (with an extension to Hambantota) and the proposed Light Rail Transit project for Colombo, work on which has just started. But it is clear that Sri Lanka will not be able to modernize its railway network without a significant infusion of foreign funding, due to domestic economic constraints.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has stepped in to fill this gap, approving a US$ 160 million (Rs.28,320 million approx.) loan to modernize the operations and improve the efficiency of Sri Lanka Railways by upgrading its infrastructure and technical capacity. This is ADB’s first loan in Sri Lanka’s railway sector. The total cost of the project is $192 million, with the Government of Sri Lanka providing $32 million. The expected project completion date is end 2024, only four years away.
This follows a US$ 92 million agreement signed recently by Indian Railways’ engineering and construction firm IRCON International Limited and the Sri Lankan government to upgrade around 130 km-long Maho-Omanthai rail line which is over 100-years-old. After upgrading of this rail line, Jaffna bound trains will reportedly be able to travel at 120 kmph, providing safe, efficient and comfortable transportation to passengers in the Northern Province.
In giving this facility, the ADB has recognized the need to improve public transportation in Sri Lanka to serve a growing population, expected to reach 25 million by 2050. ADB Transport Specialist Johan Georget hit the nail on the head when he said that “an improved railway system will help promote the development of services and industries across Sri Lanka, as well as put the railway as a viable transportation mode of choice for the people”. This is particularly the case in suburban Colombo, where the impacts of traffic congestion are strongly felt by all road commuters as vehicle numbers have doubled between 2008 and 2018, while rail commuters often face overcrowded trains.
Indeed, Sri Lanka Railways has the potential to serve much more than the 136.7 million passengers and two million tons of goods it now moves annually. But creaking infrastructure, frequent delays and strikes and very old trains and compartments have led to the decline of the market share of the railway sector over the years. Alarmingly, only about three-quarters of Sri Lanka Railways’ 250 diesel locomotives and multiple units are operational. Half of the fleet is more than 30-years-old.
Significant upgrades and modernization are long overdue – in fact, most delays occur as a result of faults in the outdated signaling and telecommunication systems. The ADB-aided Railway Efficiency Improvement Project will finance the modernization of the country’s railway system in several aspects to improve the operations, maintenance, safety, skills development, and technical capacity of Sri Lanka Railways.
One of the biggest benefits is that the project will provide a modern multichannel—paper, mobile, and smart card—ticketing system perhaps with smart gates as seen in many other countries. This will also avoid the need to have manned gates at platforms as everything is automatic.
The project contractors will also install a state-of-the-art telecommunications system, which will replace the original system installed in 1985, and allow for two-way communications with train drivers and the main control room in Colombo. This might probably mean an end to the ancient practice of passing the ‘tablet’ between the engine driver and the station master.
The project will also finance a new operations headquarters and train control centre, provide infrastructure and equipment for the maintenance of track and rolling stock, and improve railway safety. The latter is very important, as there have been a few accidents recently that could easily have been avoided with better signaling and communications facilities in place. The project will also strengthen the capacity and readiness for future railway projects including the proposed Kandy suburban railway network. Kandy is even more congested in terms of traffic than Colombo, since the roads are narrow and inclined. But more people will opt for the train if a good railway network is available to the Kandy suburbs.
Although not mentioned under this loan, electrification of at least the most popular stretches of the main lines is a must. There was talk of electrifying the line from Veyangoda to Aluthgama, though it is not clear whether any progress has been made so far. Many transport analysts have pointed out that renovating and building railway tracks is far more useful than building expressways, which only a certain percentage of the population can use owing to restrictions on the type of vehicles that can be used. On the other hand, railways are for everyone.
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