Mysuru:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the Palace Queen Humsafar Weekly Express train at the Mysuru City Railway Station yesterday. The train will run from Mysuru to Udaipur in Rajasthan.

Flagging off the train, the PM said: “This Palace Queen Humsafar Express train which connects Mysuru and Udaipur is a historical step and would boost tourism. This is a real step to boost tourism. Till now, if a tourist wishes to come to tourist destination Mysuru from another tourist destination Udaipur, he thought twice because of the journey and the number of times he/ she has to change trains across five States. Now this problem is ruled out with Humsafar Express.”  

Train No. 19668 Mysuru – Udaipur City Palace Queen Humsafar Express departs Mysuru at  10 am every Thursday to reach Udaipur City at 4.55 am on Saturday covering a distance of 2,265 kms. Services will start from Mysuru on March 1, 2018. From the other direction, Humsafar Express (Train No. 19667) departs Udaipur City at 9 pm on every Monday from 26th February, 2018 and reaches Mysuru at 4.25 pm the respective Wednesday. The train composition will have 19 coaches comprising 16 AC 3-tier coaches, two luggage-cum-brake vans with generators and one Pantry Car.

The train will connect five Western Indian States — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Covering a distance of over 2,000 km, it will pass through Mandya, Bengaluru, Davanagere, Pune, Vadodara to reach Udaipur. The train will connect 30 Parliamentary constituencies en-route, 14 of which are in Karnataka. It will also pass through 11 districts in Karnataka.

Humsafar Express will connect important heritage Palaces in and around Mysuru, Bengaluru, Hubballi, Belagavi, Pune, Vasai Road, Surat, Vadodara, Ratlam, Chittaurgarh and Udaipur, connecting whole of Western India.

It is facility for middle class travellers with exclusively 3 tier AC coaches and the train is provided with GPS-based LED display system for giving information on stations, train speed and with adequate mobile, laptop charging points and physically-challenged friendly Integrated Braille displays.  

The train will have plush interiors and comfortable cushion seats with curtains in each compartment.  The train coaches also have fire/ smoke detection and suppression system.  Each coach has a small pantry unit equipped with tea / coffee vending machine, hot box and refrigerator, urinal in two toilets per coach and baby nappy changing pad in two toilets per coach.

In addition to these, all the existing features of Humsafar Express coaches will have aesthetically pleasing colour scheme with anti-graffiti coating and distinctive 3D numbering on the exterior, CCTV surveillance of the common areas of the coaches, hygienic lavatories with odour flushing system, and passenger announcement system for alerting passengers on train’s speed, stoppages and other information.

Governor Vajubhai R. Vala, Chief Minister Siddharamaiah, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar, Chamarajanagar MP R. Dhruvanarayan, Bengaluru Central MP P.C. Mohan and others were present.