These special trains are supposed to cater to the addl demand in specific routes/ regions during festival/ summer/ puja/ Deepavali etc. There is nothing wrong in specifying MAJN as tech halt-- no loss to rlys and passengers are also clear that they can book till SRR and get down at MAJN withour any questions in their mind.
I agree that Kerala-Mumbai is a high demand route. If you put 10 addl trains also, they will get filled up. I am not against any of these. Kerala has demand and spl trains are introduced every year during summer, puja, christmas, sabarimala etc.
This...
more... does not mean that Karnataka has no addl demand towards Mumbai during summer, puja etc. Let rlys introduce spl trains from Mumbai to Karnataka towns -- Mangalore, Bangalore, Ballari etc and then gauge the sucess or failure of such trains. Not only in Konkan route, Karnataka gets zero additional trains from/ to any important towns -- be it Mysore, Shimoga, Hubballi, Ballari or Mangaluru or for that matter, any other place in karnataka. SWR which controls major part of KA is not at all (repeat not at all) interested to run any spl train towards Mumbai. They are running spl and premiums only to TN/ KL or to eastern states. CR/ SR which have their spls running through Konkan can help Karnataka passengers by providing some stops. But Karnataka pax are hoodwinked with 'Premium' concept.
As pointed out by you, instead of TEN, this spl can be terminated at KCVL/ TVC. In such a case, one stop can be given at MAJN.
If Rlys feel that TEN has much premium demand, why not they run a premium via Pune, Bangalore, Madurai with the stipulated 5 stoppages at Pune, Guntakal, Bangalore, Salem and Madurai. This will link atleast more geographical area. OR Mumbai - TEN via Pune, Guntakal, Tirupathi, Trichy and Madurai can also be thought of.