For reasons other than red tape, it has taken Indian Railways a whopping 11 years to resume passenger service between India's IT hub Bangalore and Mangalore.
BANGALORE: For reasons other than red tape, it has taken Indian Railways a whopping 11 years to resume passenger service between India's IT hub Bangalore and the port city of Mangalore in southern Karnataka.
As a result, the railways have lost out a great deal to the road transport, besides the goodwill of the people in the region.
While the distance between Bangalore and Mangalore by road is about 330 km, it stretches to around 450-510 km by train depending on the route the South Western Railway (SWR) takes to operate the service that is set to resume Saturday via Mysore.
Although Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav will flag off a "ceremonial train" from Mangalore Dec 8, a full-fledged service with passengers on board will leave from Yesvantpur station in Bangalore the same evening and reach Mangalore the next morning after a 12-hour journey.
The service will have 16 coaches comprising an air-conditioned two-tier and an air-conditioned three-tier, six three-tier second class sleeper, six general second class and two second class-cum-luggage vans.
The gauge conversion was taken up earnestly over a decade ago (1995-96) from Arsikere and Hassan to Mangalore, which is midway (234 km) between the two bustling cities. It is the 188 km stretch between Hassan and Mangalore through the picturesque Western Ghats that caused inordinate delays in completing the work for reasons beyond our control, a railway official told IANS.
"The sheer topography of the rich bio-diverse Western Ghats and the amount of rainfall (80-100 inches) during the southwest monsoon every year put paid to our efforts in converting from metre guage track to broad guage on schedule," the official said.
Executing the project between Sakleshpur and Subramanya Road (64 km) towards the coastal town of Mangalore was the toughest due to the mountain range and an inhospitable terrain, the official added.
As a result of the long delay, the project cost shot up to Rs.3.8 billion from the original estimate of Rs.3.1 billion. The railways had to redo the civil works a couple of times in many stretches across the ghat section due to landslides, seepage and flooding over the last decade.
"The single track between Sakleshpur and Subramanya Road has 57 tunnels covering 11 km, 684 bridges and 230 curves, with a maximum turn of eight degrees. More over, for every kilometre, the gradient raises by 50 metres in the ghats," said the official.
The longest tunnel is half-kilometre. "We had to also build two new stations in response to the demand by the commuters between Kankanadi and Kabakaputtur (45 km)," South Western Railway's chief administrative officer S. Vijay Kumar said.
Considered an engineering marvel, the project was taken up in phases, first in the plains from Arsikere to Hassan and subsequently in the terrain through Western Ghats. The entire route has the latest signalling system and anti-collision devices for the smooth and safe movement of freight and passenger trains.
Railway public relations officer B.S. Dasarathi said the entire route was opened up for goods trains May 2006 to ferry iron ore from the mining belt of Bellary-Hospet in north Karnataka to Mangalore port via Hassan.
In the reverse direction, petroleum products and fertilizers are carried from Mangalore to interior Karnataka, including Bangalore, by the same route.
The railways opened the route for freight traffic first in the broad gauge section of Hassan-Sakleshpur (42 km) in December 1997, from Mangalore to Kabakaputtur in December 2003 and Kankanadi to Subramanya Road (42 km) in May 2005.
A pair of shuttle services was also introduced between Mangalore and Subramanya Road.
After the railway safety commission inspected the ghat section and cleared the track for freight movement, the railways have been operating a pair of goods trains in both directions daily, Dasarathi said on telephone from Hubli, where the South Western Railway has its headquarters.
Refuting charges that the resumption of passenger service was delayed to enable the road transport lobby to rake in the moolah by operating buses and trucks between Bangalore and Mangalore, Dasarathi said the railways had to wait for the safety commission's clearance in the case of passenger service because the ghat section suffered setbacks due to inclement weather and repeated landslides.
"There is a vast difference in operating a freight train and a passenger train, as safety and security of passengers are paramount and cannot be compromised, especially in the region prone to landslides, flooding and other natural disasters. Even after permitting freight trains in the section, we had to modify many things en-route to ensure there were no hitch in conforming to the safety norms laid down by the commission," Dasarathi recalled.
The railways plan to operate an additional train during daytime to facilitate passengers, including tourists and pilgrims to enjoy the breath-taking view of Western Ghats and rich flora and fauna spawning the region.
"We need to first stabilise the track and regulate the traffic to strike a balance between the movement of goods and passengers in the entire stretch, besides providing onward connectivity for outbound passengers at Mangalore as well as Bangalore," Dasrathi added.
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