Police Commissioner Mr.Bidari has given few suggestions to BMLTA which includes Commuter Rail on existing tracks. Here is the link: http://bangalorebuzz.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-proposals-to-ease-traffic.html

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Sorry Tarle, I copied peices of the Google Map and pasted it together as a tiled image. I actually wanted a printable version that is 4 A3s put together, so needed the resolution to be high enough.and then manually drew out the route and added icons. Its a bit of a Khichdi map! But if you have the locations of the bus stops plotted on a google map, then I can super impose that on this map, and copy the spots. Easy....no issues

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As they have mentioned before, railways are not interested in running locals in bangalore..they want to restrict to long distance..else running train to BIAL was not a problem..

But one intersting observation is that a friend of mine along with many others who stay in the vijayanagar/rajarajeshwari nagar area and work around KR puram area, including ITPL, use trains already..they park vehicles at SBC and take the chennai train..

They are saying its very easy..as the ride takes less than 30 min to KR puram..

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I read in ToI sometime back that the Railways does not have adequate infrastructure to

cater to both the needs of inter-city rail service and intra-city / suburban rail service. For the latter, a frequency of service is required in order for economies of scale to exist. But if such frequencies exist, then the former (inter-city) gets affected as inter-city and freight trains cannot use the tracks in Bangalore

I suggest the following as a long term suggestion:

• Open 4 inter-city train stations along the end of peripheral ring road or at the end of all Metro-lines. For example, train travelling north towards hubli / pune / hyderabad can start from Hessarghatta cross metro line station
• One station each in north, east, west and south
• Different trains can be operated from these stations
• A circular "Peripheral" rail ring with enough infrastructure would provided adequate connectivity on an intercity basis from all ends of Bangalore 

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Lease railway land and lay seperate track for city trains. City authorities can run this service.

Railways get to keep the land and still earn revenue. While we get the trains we need.

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South Western Railways is NOT interested in the welfare of Karnataka.

All they are interested is in bringing in people from all over India, especially from 'Laluland' in Bangalore.

They could not give up 720 sq ft of their land for the Rammurthynagar Underpass and even were successfull in getting the ASI to shift Colonel Bailey's dungeon in Srirangapatna instead of acquiring agricultural land for which they have the money and means to do so.

People coming from Patna have no regards for the historical importance of Srirangapatna.

It is high time Karnataka "nationalises" the railways and their assets in Karnataka. Form a seperate railway called "Karnataka Railways Corporation" and manage it from Karnataka itself. 

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narayan awesome maps you have been posting. have you saved the kmls? i now have the list of all the bmtc stops. more than 1700. want to map them dont know how. anyideas?

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I have drawn a map, on existing railway lines and existing stations. I suggest only 2 new stations be added.  I feel that this service would be better kept low cost and not in the same area as Vaayu Vajras, but target the crowd that uses the normal BMTC busses.

If we can build some Intermediate stations (only platforms) with a ticket counter it would serve even better.

I seem constructime at most 6 - 7 months and maybe the same for procuring bogies/engines. I see this train somewhat on the lines of the Mumbai and Delhi trains.

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Bangalore-Mysore track is fully free during morning hours as I said upto 9 AM (Push Pull) and again upto 9:45 AM till the second train Chamundi from Mysore comes. Evening, after 6:25PM till 7PM, track is free.  Again after 7:10 PM till 9PM, Bangalore-Kengeri route is free.This route is not as busy as probably the northern portion. But, 2 shuttle trains in the morning and 2 in the evening from the opposite direction can be definitely run without any extra investment on the Mysore track. Bangalore-Whitefield route, after watching the time table from Cantt to SBC since all the train stops in Cantt, definitely 2 trains can be incorporated. So many extra holiday trains are run without much debate, why not 2 local shuttle trains, during peak hours. Otherway around is SBC - Yeshwantpur, Byappanahalli, KR Puram, Whitefield.

 

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... like some of above (every railway minister pushes and bats for his state and nobody else - this accusation has been pretty common. but lets look beyond that a bit), does anyone have any contacts in SWR to get to know the real reasons behind their disinterest in running commuter rail service in and around Bangalore right now?

Don't forget that CTTP was prepared by RITES, which in indirect ways is drawn from and controlled by the Railway Ministry. RITES prepared CTTP does talk about Commuter Railways Services (CRS) on Bangalore's SWR lines. BMLTA too includes a representative from SWR.

Is CRS not seen as being profitable? Perhaps it is not as easy as it looks - may be the lines don't have free capacity, SWR would need to lay more tracks, and do a few things like interchanges (rail over rail) - thus requiring more investment? How much money are we talking about?

You have to realize that one reason for 'success' (if we can call people traveling like packed sardines that, I am fine with it) of commuter rails in Mumbai is the fact that the exchange between bus and train works very well. Get off the train, walk to a bus stand and get on. Without such 'interconnect' in place, and given that Bangalore is not shaped like Mumbai, it could be that CRS is not see to be profitable.

But then, one can always ask - why can't railways do it as public service. After all, their passenger services are subsidized from freight and container operations, isn't it?

Something tells me that this thing is a simple state vs central government thing. Could it be that our state government doesn't have the capacity to approach SWR? Think of it, There is no state level ministry dealing with railways (its a central subject)? and there is no umbrella body that deals with urban transportation in 'big picture' way (discount BMLTA, its too new and still small). So, it could be that there is no regular 'meeting ground' between our city and SWR.

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Further, let me remind all about this recent post - "SWR, please listen to us". In there, business-standard has an SWR official quoted as saying this:

As to why state politicians and government officials are not interested, a source familiar with the decision-making process said, “Please realise where the incentive lies. Spend Rs 3,000 crore or more on your own — imagine the contracts that can be awarded — or give the Railways Rs 100 crore or maybe less to do the job

Could this angle have any truth - state itself hasn't done enough socializing with SWR?

 

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I too have a feeling that since the GoK is not approaching the SWR and SWR is also in it's comfort zone and not worrying too much about the intra city (Suburban) trains in Bengaluru.

I mean imagine the revenues they can generate transporting about 70 lakh people and they are saying no to business..?!!! Imagine if a private body owned SWR, they would have created the suburban services in no time.

Bengalureans must start a organized effort to get the suburbun trains going. There can be many models. SWR themselves run the trains, or they lease the tracks to a private / government organization to run the trains (like Virgin runs trains in the UK) or they lease the land to lay new tracks.

With Bengaluru already having a good rail network along with stations in and around the city the suburbun trains is easily achieveable with enough political will.

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well, from what i understood tracking through Mr. Mangal (whose now doing signals in orrisa or is it bihar) was that railways too is not very interested. they dont have the stations, they cant run the frequency on some routes. where they can the grade separation is not there, so traffic on roads will get backed up and so on. the list of liturgies is quite long even on the railways side.

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May be

- 4 or 5 rail over rail interchange - 100-200 croores?

- 10-15 grade separators (to put road over or under track -  300-400 crores?

- Station investment - PPP - build and run a station, build 5-6 floors over the station for commercial purposes (NAvi Mumbai Vashi Nerul types)

- Extra tracks - now, this could be substantial if it involves land acquisition. But where is the proof that current tracks are not going to be enough.

We might be talking a lot lot less money that Metro or high speed rail etc. Sandeep (he is sopassionate about this he had calld me to push me to do something on this!) is right, we need an organized effort to make sure this is not left on the table because neither KA govt or SWR is willing to pick it up.

SWR enthusiasts - we will talk more when we meet next Saturday. 

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Narayan, will be nice if you can do a compreensive map with following details

• Need to add the other lines - Selam line that can connect Whitefield area with Electronics City. And the one on North side, heading towards Yelahanka and beyond.
• New stations that might be required (just like you showd two here)
• The upcoming (8) and other planned TTMCs, how far or clase are they to these train stations
• Coloring scheme showing double lines and single lines. Selam line is single. 
• Status of these line crossings - are thre stations at each junction? Any 'signal-free' junction? Possible bug junctions where you would expect crowds to change trains

We can build this map as we go.

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Here goes...

 I have below composed a Map of Bangalore with existing stations and loctions for new stations. I have also drawn out the railway line. Please do give inputs as to which lines are doubled and have high usage.

I havent marked any route syet so we may all have a go at suggesting them. As my prev image shows it wont happen at the first go :)

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We are waiting long for the Metro to reduce the travel times. I was just going through trainenquiry.com to see what is the time on train to Whitefield from Majestic. Express trains can reach whitefield in 30 minutes and passenger in 45 minutes.

Here is the timing of Chennai Mail:

SBC BANGALORE CY JN Starting Station 08:15, 11 Aug 2008 BNC BANGALORE CANT 08:25, 11 Aug 2008 08:27, 11 Aug 2008 KJM KRISHNARAJAPURM 08:33, 11 Aug 2008 08:35, 11 Aug 2008 WFD WHITEFIELD 08:44, 11 Aug 2008 08:45, 11 Aug 2008

30 minutes only!!

Here is the timing of Marikuppam Passenger:

SBC BANGALORE CY JN Starting Station 07:00, 11 Aug 2008 BNC BANGALORE CANT 07:10, 11 Aug 2008 07:12, 11 Aug 2008 BNCE BANGALORE EAST 07:17, 11 Aug 2008 07:18, 11 Aug 2008 BYPL BAIYYAPPANAHALI 07:24, 11 Aug 2008 07:25, 11 Aug 2008 KJM KRISHNARAJAPURM 07:29, 11 Aug 2008 07:30, 11 Aug 2008 WFD WHITEFIELD 07:44, 11 Aug 2008 07:45, 11 Aug 2008

I was travelling by train to Mysore. From SBC to Nayandahalli, train took just 10 minutes with average of 50kmph since it was city limits. On the road reaching Nayandahalli in the Mysore road / Vijaynagar traffic cannot be made less than 20 minutes and peak hours it takes 1 hour. 

Why SWR not exploring this golden opportunity and why not our state Government pushing.

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The railways are bound to make profit if they have the willingness to take these suggestions. There seems to be too much of bureaucracy and lack of willingness on the part of the state to do anything. If we take this argument that it will be a loss-making venture [Intra-city] and that it would interrupt inter-city trains, why can't the railways build on top of the existing railway network/ lines and at an elevation, run metro trains?

Praja and all other like minded groups should formulate a draft of all the ideas and put pressure on the government to act through public meetings.

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I have to admit it. I read a detailed article about Shri Shankar Bidari's plans to regulate traffic and most importantly parking. Bidari's plans are very realistic and immediately implementable. Only thing it requires is will from the top. Bidari seems to be pooh-poohed by the top brass at BMLTA. Gaurav Gupta has no faith in himself, as a noted journalist once wrote about him. The current BMLTA commissioner that he is, Gupta is just famous for sitting and doing nothing. He has no self confidence in himself, let alone Bidari's plans. I wish Bidari all the best!

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