Abstract:
Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) is operating around 300 passenger train movements daily across
its 1400 Km rail network. About 90% of train movements out of this have Maradana or
Colombo as the destination or the starting point. It further leads to a figure that around 50
trains which amount to more than 30% of the inbound train service to Colombo is reaching
either Colombo Fort or Maradana daily within the morning peak time. All these train
movements are using the Colombo - Maradana block section which comprises of only four
rail tracks, hence causing a reasonable delay for the morning peak hour train service.
Delay in this particular section is commonly identified as caused by the lack ofinfrastructure
which includes less number of Platforms, inappropriately arranged sendee feeders (depots)
and low flexibility in the signaling system. In addition to this the overlap operation between
Colombo and Maradana, which is resulted by always keeping the furthermost station as the
destination or starting point. Overlap operation has created additional train movements
which leads the situation to an even worse.
Objective of this research is to find out the root cause for the delay in the Colombo Fort -
Maradana section and explore the possibilities of reducing train delays. In this view, the
delay portion pertaining to this section is quantified through a survey and it confirms the
worthiness of the research. It was then continued to check the actual requirement of
continuing the overlap operation and in results, sufficient evidence found for a service
restriction. Actual line and platform utilization at present were calculated to find out whether
any alterations are required to the systems and operational practices. Train feeding
arrangements are also studied for suggesting modifications for the practices in order to catch
up the delays. Mainly the issues in reducing the number of train movements in the section
and reshuffling the feeding arrangements to achieve this target are addressed in this research.
