CHENNAI: Passengers wading in to Egmore railway station through slow-moving traffic will soon be able to read the arrival/departure details of their trains from their vehicles. A wide digital board displaying train information in big font size simultaneously in English, Hindi and Tamil is being set up beside the food plazas at the station entrance. Egmore station officials told City Express that the board would be commissioned within a few days. In addition, five other such boards are being commissioned near the reservation counter and foot-over-bridges. A board will also come up on the Poonamalee High road side for the benefit of suburban passengers.
This is part of plans to digitise the entire Egmore station, a senior railway official said. The station already has a similar digital board on platform number 4, but there have been passenger complaints that details are not visible from a distance due to small font size. The size of the board is 15 x 10 feet, while the dimensions of the latest one would be 30 x 10 feet. Currently, train information in different languages is displayed one after the other, while in the new one, it would be simultaneous. “We are often approached by hindi-speaking people about train timings. This board will be of great use to them,” porters and auto drivers told CE. Officials also said that Egmore would get digital display boards on platforms which informs people of the particular coach of the train. “That facility is already there in Central and other stations like Bangalore. It would benefit people travelling in south-bound trains,” an official said. “This is an excellent facility. I can have my food and coffee at the food plaza and yet know the timings instead of going into the platform,” said 35-year-old R Ramanan, who regularly travels to Madurai.