BENGALURU: Two pairs of Kerala-bound trains will now originate from and terminate at Banaswadi railway station. This change is mainly aimed at decongesting the Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (Bengaluru City) railway station. The Railway Board recently gave the green signal for the move proposed by the Bangalore Railway Division over six months ago.
The KSR Bengaluru-Ernakulam Superfast Express (Train no. 22608), which runs on Mondays, will originate from Banaswadi from January 4 while the KSR Bengaluru-Ernakulam Bi-weekly (Train no. 12684), which runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, will originate from Banaswadi from January 8 next year. The trains in the return direction will terminate at Banaswadi too, say top officials. Both the trains presently depart from KSR at 6.45 pm and while returning from Ernakulam, they reach the station at 4 am. The same timings will be continued from Banaswadi.
“Many Keralites reside at Banaswadi, K R Puram, Carmelaram and surrounding areas. They can now alight closer home. It will also help the Railways divert trains from the key stations of KSR and Yesvantpur,” a top railway official said.
With an average of 124 Express trains and 98 Passenger trains arriving an
d departing from KSR and Yesvantpur on a daily basis, there is too much congestion at these stations, he pointed out. “We routed a couple of trains through Bangalore Cantonment and then through Krishnarajapuram stations. Now, we are trying Banaswadi. If the move is well received, we can contemplate routing more Kerala trains in this direction,” another official said.
Presently, there are 10 trains running to Kerala from Bengaluru, four from Yesvantpur (1 daily, two weeklies and 1 triweekly) and six from KSR station (4 daily, 1 weekly and 1 biweekly), said a senior official in the Operations department. “To clear rush of passengers, we also ran a temporary train from August 8 to October 1 this year between Banaswadi and Ernakulam (Train no. 06041/04042),” he informed.
Facilities at Banaswadi are to be upgraded as all suburban MEMU trains are set to be stabled here in future. Apart from the existing two platforms connected by a foot overbridge, two more are on the anvil. An average of 28 trains pass through the station daily.