Mysuru: Passengers commuting between Bengaluru and Mysuru on a daily basis are in for a shock as the South Western Railway (SWR) has decided to divert the Kannur-Karwar Express via Kunigal instead of Mysuru from Feb.10, 2018.

The daily express, which ferried passengers from Bengaluru’s Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway Station at 8.30 pm throughout the week, will now travel via Kunigal Town in Tumakuru four days a week (Sunday to Wednesday). Earlier, passengers who missed the 7 pm push-pull train to Mysuru would board the Kannur-Karwar Express but now they will have to wait till midnight for the Passenger train. However, the train will operate via Mysuru on rest of the days (Thursday to Saturday).

Currently, more than 20 trains are operating between Mysuru and Bengaluru every day ferrying around 20,000 passengers. This apart, majority of 5,000 to 6,000 passengers from Mandya, Ramanagaram, Channapatna and surrounding places, who travel everyday to Bengaluru to attend jobs, are dependent on the 8.30 Kannur Express for the return journey.

On the other hand people travelling to Mangaluru and Karwar are elated as the journey time is expected to come down by a couple of hours with distance reducing around 80 kms.

However, regular commuters between Mysuru and Bengaluru have demanded an alternative train at the same time from Bengaluru.

Sources at SWR said that the Railway Authorities were thinking of extending the services of the train commuting between Bengaluru and Ramanagaram to Mysuru. But it was still at the discussion level.