BENGALURU: Amidst all the euphoria over signing of an agreement for Suburban Rail Network for the city, here is a realistic picture on the time frame involved.
The Railway land at Banaswadi, which will be developed for maintenance purpose of the 15 pairs of Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains to be used to run the suburban rail service, will easily take more than a year to be upgraded.
Currently, Railways have 100 acres of land at Jai Bharat Nagar Road in Banaswadi which will be upgraded massively to create five pit lines that can house MEMU trains.
“The total cost involved in this will be Rs 25 crore and Railways have asked the state government to fund the project. It will take us more than a year after the funds are released to put in place at least three pit lines,” said top railway officials. Two more pit lines can be added later.
At present, there is only one pit line and three trains are being taken here for maintenance. “It takes six hours for Railways to carry out maintenance work and two hours to shunt the train to its destination. So, in 24 hours, we are able to accommodate only a maximum of three trains,” explained an official.
Meanwhile, Railways propose to replace 15 pairs of existing trains running on conventional coaches with MEMUs to facilitate transportation of larger numbers of passengers. “The advantage with a MEMU is that it can carry up to 3,000 passengers while the present trains can carry only 2,000. There is less seating capacity here and a maximum of 48 passengers can only be seated. However, there is more standing space which allows an additional 200 more in a coach,” he added.
Each MEMU will have 12 coaches unlike the regular train which will have 10 or even 11 coaches.
The consumption of diesel will come down as it will be run fully on electricity. “It will be eco-friendly too,” said another official. The pick-up speed is expected to be higher in case of MEMUs. BEML is ready to supply the coaches within six months as soon as the order is placed. “It is again up to the state government to release funds for it, which will cost us Rs 360 crore,” he said.
CM Siddaramaiah had tweeted a couple of days ago that the state was willing to bear 80 per cent of the cost for replacement of the existing coaches.
So, when can we realistically see the suburban rail services having the first run? At the earliest, it could take one and half years from now. The focus first needs to be on readying the Railway land at Banaswadi.