RailEnquiry

CHENNAI: Soon, passengers on some trains from Chennai, to Coimbatore, Tirupati, Vijayawada and the soon-to-be introduced Chennai-Bangalore Shatabdi double-decker Express, will be able to enjoy serials and news programmes on flat screen television sets during the journey. Such shows are already being telecast on TV sets on the Chennai-Bangalore-Chennai and the Chennai-Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi Expresses, the Lalbagh Express and the Thiruvananthapuram-Guruvayur- Thiruvananthapuram Express in the first phase of the project, according to V Girish Kumar, head of Chennai-based Trans Vision which has bagged the contract for the on-board entertainment programme. He said news-based shows and serials hosted by popular channels like Star Vijay, Sony TV and Kudumbam were now being telecast on the day trains. Passengers were greeted in Hindi, Tamil, English and Kannada at the start of the journey and each station that the train passes through a little information about the place was told.

He said his company was in talks with various content providers, including national channels, to provide fresh content for the viewing pleasure of the passengers.

Asked about why the passengers could not be provided head-phones as is done on long-distance buses, he said the railways had stuck down the move to introduce the facility. Since the programmes began to be aired on TVs onboard the trains, several people had complained that the noise from the sets disturbed their sleep, particularly early in the morning. Others said that on most occasions they could not hear the programmes.