Mysuru: The statutory inspection of the pending 1.5 km stretch of Railway line near Srirangapatna — taken up as part of track doubling work between Mysuru and Bengaluru — was completed by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) yesterday.
Though originally scheduled to be held on Nov. 4, the authorities conducted a spot visit besides the track inspection, complete with speed trials and inspection of the two new Railway bridges, across River Cauvery.
Sources said the CRS inspection covered all technical issues besides observation of the curvature, points and crossings and no major lacunae have been found. All things being satisfactory, the authorisation for operationalising the track may be issued within a week. The inspection team travelled on the 1.5 km stretch of the track, laid upon the bridges of the two branches of the Cauvery River, to see how safe it was.
The works on a small portion of the track were delayed due to the presence of Tipu’s armoury on the route. The armoury was moved physically, away from the path, to lay the new track. Even though the works on the track was completed a couple of months ago, it did not get authorisation, a process of getting sanction for operation of passenger services on the track.
The inspection team comprised Manoharan, (CRS) Southern Region, Ashok Gupta, Chief Administrative Officer (Construction), South Western Railways (SWR), A.K. Garg, Chief Bridge Engineer, SWR, Hubballi, S.K. Jain, Chief Engineer (Construction) and R.S. Saxena, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Bengaluru Division.
Consequent to the CRS approval for operationalising the track, the running time between Naganahalli and Pandavapura is expected to further reduce by about 7 to 10 minutes.
The CRS inspection also draws the track doubling work between Mysuru and Bengaluru to a close. While the Bengaluru-Ramanagaram section had been doubled earlier, the Ramanagaram-Mysuru section received administrative clearance in 2007 and the authorities took more than 11 years to complete the doubling work on the 93 km stretch.
Though doubling work along the entire section was completed in 2014, work on the 1.5 km stretch was pending owing to the 18th Century armoury belonging to the era of Tipu Sultan which was located along the alignment of the new track, causing the work to be stalled.
Following permission from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the monument was translocated in one piece with expertise from the US in March this year, paving the way for completion of the second track as well.
The officials said, on the 140-km-long Bengaluru-Mysuru route, the electrification is done long back, up to Kengeri. The works on electrification is underway from Kengeri to Yeliyur. The works from Yeliyur to Mysuru would be taken up shortly, they said.
This post was published on November 7, 2017 6:59 pm