BENGALURU: With the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) giving the green signal for the commissioning of the 1.7- km stretch at the Srirangapatna yard, the railway line doubling project between Bengaluru and Mysuru that commenced 11 years ago has finally been completed. While the immediate benefit will be the speeding up of all Express trains running along this length by a maximum of 5 minutes, the infrastrucutre will permit running of more trains between the two cities in future if there is a demand.
Work on the 138.25-km rail line doubling project began in 2007.
Due to the presence of the heritage monument — the 10mx12m Tipu armoury at Srirangapatna — this small stretch of tracks alone could not be commissioned. The cost of line doubling shot up to `875 crore from the original estimate of `480 crore.Speaking to Express, Deputy General Manager, South Westrn Railway, E Vijaya said, “The CRS has cleared the section and the commissioning of the stretch near Srirangapatna will take place at 5 am on Tuesday (November 21).” Bengaluru Divisional Railway Manager R S S Saxena confirmed that clearance had been given.
A senior railway source said that the CRS has now authorised running trains at 80 kmph along the stretch. “The cautionary order issued for running of trains at 30 kmph for the nearly 2 km stretch between Naganahalli and Pandavapura stations will be removed on the night of November 20,” the source added.
An operations official said Express trains between the two cities can now run between 4 and 5 minutes faster as they need not slow down due to the caution order on speed. An average of 19 trains, including eight Express trains, run between the cities daily. “The number of trains per day increases by one or two on some days due to the weekly trains also being run on different days,” another official said.
Another major benefit will be additional manpower for the Zone. “The four Assistant Station Masters (ASM) taking care of the Srirangaptna railway station can now be removed as station masters at Naganahalli or Pandavapura will take care of signalling here,” a top railway official said.
What still remains incomplete is the electrification work between Shettyhalli and Mysuru due to delay on the part of the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited in awarding the contract for setting up a 220KV line.
“After the electrification is also completed, trains will be run on electricity instead of diesel and Railways will incur lesser costs then,” a source said.At present, the long distance trains heading from Bengaluru to Mysuru are stopped at Bengaluru City railway station and the electric loco is changed to a diesel loco, he said. “That operation can be avoided when electrification gets completed,” the source added.