By Fakir Balaji, IANS
Mangalore : Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Saturday flagged off here the long-awaited passenger train to Bangalore that will chug on the newly laid broad gauge line after a gap of 11 years.
A beaming Lalu Prasad, attired in his standard white kurta-pyjama, pressed the electronic button to flag off the train from the bedecked platform as the guard blew the whistle for the express train to roll out.
While a full-fledged service will debut from India’s IT hub later in the day, with its 16 coaches, including air-conditioned and sleeper classes, fully booked, general passengers were kept away from the ceremonial train as it was meant to carry only VIPs, top railway officials and special invitees.
Interestingly, the inaugural train is being run in the daytime on the 508 km route through the picturesque Western Ghats across the Deccan peninsula, which is rich in biodiversity and flora and fauna while the daily service will start in the evening.
“The daily service ex-Mangalore will begin Sunday evening, and take 12 hours to cover the route, which is longer (by 70-80 km), as we are operating the over-night train via Mysore instead of Arsikere for the time being due to the single track till Hassan and heavy freight traffic en-route,” a top railway official told IANS on the sidelines of the inaugural function.
“We will consider a day train between the state capital and the port city next year after the converted uni-gauge track stabilizes and the movement of goods’ trains are regulated,” he said.
With the state under the president’s rule, the people, who assembled in large numbers for the event, felt the conspicuous absence of a popular government and its representatives at the function. However, Governor Rameshwar Thakur was present, along with Minister of State for Railways R. Velu.
Prominent leaders from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vied for attention while sharing the dais with Lalu Prasad.
Among them were Administrative Reforms Commission chairman and former state chief minister Veerappa Moily, union minister Oscar Fernandes, Congress leaders Margaret Alva and B. Janardhana Pujary and state BJP unit president D.V. Sadananda Gowda, who represents the Mangalore parliamentary seat.
However Janata Dal-Secular president and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his son and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy stayed away from the function though invited.
Train services between the two cities were suspended over a decade ago (1995-96) for converting the metre gauge track into broad gauge when state Congress leader Jaffer Sharieff was the railway minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government (1991-96).
The sheer topography of the Western Ghats and the heavy amount of rainfall (80-100 inches) during the southwest monsoon every year dragged the conversion works for years with extended deadlines.
“Executing the project between Sakleshpur and Subramanya Road (64km) towards the coastal city (Mangalore) was the toughest due to mountain ranges and an inhospitable terrain,” South Western Railway (SWR) chief spokesperson B.S. Dasarathi recalled.
As a result of inordinate delays, the gauge conversion project cost shot up to Rs.3.8 billion from the original estimate of Rs.3.1 billion, as 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. Moreover, for every kilometre, the gradient raises by 50 m in the ghats. The longest tunnel is half-km. We had to also build two new stations in response to the demand by the commuting people between Kankanadi and Kabakaputtur (45 km),” South Western Railway chief administrative officer (construction) S. Vijay Kumar pointed out.
Considered to be 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.
The entire route was opened up for goods trains May 2006 to ferry iron and manganese ore from the rich mining belt of Bellary-Hospet in north Karnataka to Mangalore port via Hassan. In the reverse direction, petroleum products and fertilisers are carried from Mangalore to interior Karnataka, including Bangalore by the same route.