Kerala railway infrastructure upgrades

In July 2026, Indian Parliament members announced two upgrades to Kerala’s rail services: the Palaruvi Express and the Madurai‑Guruvayur Express will receive modern Linke‑Hofmann‑Busch (LHB) coaches, with an extra Third AC coach added to the Palaruvi Express, and the Railway Board approved a third track on the Kayamkulam‑Thiruvananthapuram corridor, pending detailed surveys.

By early August 2026, the Southern Railway’s Thiruvananthapuram division moved to implement further capacity improvements by inviting tenders for earthwork on the Thuravoor‑Ambalapuzha track‑doubling project. The initiative, part of a broader set of sanctioned double‑track schemes covering Thuravoor‑Mararikulam, Mararikulam‑Alappuzha and Alappuzha‑Ambalapuzha, aims to reduce the 30‑minute waiting times caused by the single‑line bottleneck. The project has been allocated ₹120 crore for 2026‑27, with the 15.59 km Kumbalam‑Thuravoor stretch targeted for completion by December 2027 and the 7.71 km Ernakulam‑Kumbalam section slated for commissioning in December 2029.