Commuters upset as congestion, delays plague Chennai Beach–Tambaram train service on day 1 of revised schedule

Hundreds of commuters faced severe hardship owing to heavy congestion and delays on the first day of the reduced suburban train services on the Beach-Tambaram and Chengalpattu section on Friday (February 20, 2026). To facilitate the redevelopment works to be carried out at the Egmore railway station, Southern Railway had announced the reduction of suburban train services and also the switching of platforms for 45 days starting from Friday.

As per the new revision, the Chennai division would operate 160 services instead of the normal 204 from Beach to Tambaram and Chengalpattu. Also, nearly 20 services were truncated and operated from the Egmore railway station. Commuters who thought switching to Metro Rail services at the Guindy railway station would save them from the congestion were in for a surprise as those coaches were jam-packed too.

S. Vinoth Kumar, a regular commuter from Tambaram, said that on normal days, the 12-car rake of the suburban trains running from Chengalpattu to Beach via Tambaram were packed during peak hours. With reduced services, hundreds of office-goers and lawyers bound for the Madras High Court and the Secretariat suffered due to the trains getting delayed on Friday morning, he pointed out.

Commuters were upset that the trains were halted for several minutes at the Nungambakkam, Chetpet, and Park railway stations between 10 a.m. to noon, with even two trains stopping one behind the other near the Park railway station at one point. This forced a section of commuters to disembark from the train and walk to the exit of the railway station.

A senior Southern Railway official said being the first day of the new timings, there was some confusion, and things would be rectified soon. The new announcement also brought to the fore the poor coordination of railway officials with the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) as they failure to request the operation of shuttle services from the Egmore railway station to the temporary bus terminus in Royapuram via the Beach railway station.

Though the MTC had announced that additional bus services towards Tambaram and Chengalpattu would be operated from Royapuram terminus, commuters were inconvenienced due to the lack of shuttle services. A senior MTC official said railway officials had informed them of the truncated train services but did not request shuttle services, similar to those operated from the Chintadripet railway station when Mass Rapid Transit System services were stopped there to facilitate the fourth line project between the Egmore and Chennai Beach railway stations. The MTC official said they would definitely operate shuttle services based on the demand.