Mysuru: Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has assured to extend the Chennai-Bengaluru Superfast Train to Mysuru. The Minister has also assured to extend three trains that are plying between Mysuru City Railway Station and Bengaluru till Ashokapuram Station.
Responding positively to a series of requisitions made by Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha yesterday when the Minister paid a short visit to Mysuru, Piyush Goyal said that in the interest of Mysuru tourism where lakhs of people come here to see a host of unique nature-gifted tourist spots, he would consider the MP’s request soon.
He said that the Chennai-Bengaluru Superfast Train (12609) will be extended to Mysuru. Pratap Simha told the Minister that the said train, once arrives at Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) Station in Bengaluru from Chennai Central Station, it stands idle for the whole night with no primary maintenance. Extension of the train will fill the demand-supply gap and capacity augmentation with no additional investment in physical infrastructure, he told the Minister.
Pratap Simha said that the services of three trains between Mysuru and Bengaluru — Vishvamanava Express (17326/25), Chamundi Express (16215/16) and Tipu Superfast Express (12613/14) — can be extended to Ashokapuram Railway Station. Once the service is extended, as a next step, these trains can start from Ashokapuram Station and then come to City Railway Station, the MP told the Minister. Giving a patient ear to the MP, Piyush Goyal said that he will soon direct the officials in his Ministry to look into the feasibility of the extension of trains. He also directed the Mysuru Railway officials to take steps to extend the trains by looking into technical aspects.
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Nice to see that more trains are being considered from Mysore. But unfortunately the need to connect with major tourist places across India has not been address. We have trains to Chennai, and train 12609 has a rake sharing with Lalbag Express. Hence the feasibility is very much in question until this train is scheduled to leave Mysore at 05:15 hrs.
Instead long distance trains connecting important places like Dehradun, Amritsar, Jammu, Ujjain, Lucknow and North-Eastern States would really boost the tourism. Also there is no connectivity to the nearby attraction. Train to Thiruvananthapuram is long pending. There is no direct train to Goa or Pondicherry.
We are wasting acres of land for Mysore Airport. This land should be use construct a big Railway station which help railways introduce long distance trains from Karnataka. The Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna Railway station in Bangalore is to congested now and a grand railway station in Mysore will help extend many trains. This will also help reduce load on KSR.