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Using the present Indian railways as Commuter rail in Bangalore

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Written By vinod_shankar - 18 December, 2009

Bangalore Congestion Whitefield CRS SWR Citizen Reports Transportation public transport Commuter rail

For the past month or so, i have been regularly using the IR trains running between cantonment station and whitefield station to commute to my office near Whitefield.  I am travelling by train only in the mornings, as the frequency is decent. Its a struggle to find trains in the evenings.  I find the trains reliable and on schedule  most of the time. Surprisingly there are quite few of folks from IT sector already using this service regularly for office commute. Approximate travel time from cantonment station to whitefield station is 40  min with 2 minute stops at East station, byapannahalli station and K R puram station.  Find below my schedule for the trains....


And cost for passenger trains in Rs.3/- and express trains Rs.25/-. 
It would good if more people start using the existing trains for daily commute and create a pressure on system so that IR will actually introduce commuter trains. Let me know if anyone needs more info on how to use IR trains for city commuting.

Regards,

 

COMMENTS

Thanks a million Vinod for

RKCHARI - 19 December, 2009 - 09:03

Thanks a million Vinod for that link on the Whitefield to Bangalore City Station timings. Have taken a print out and pasted it on my desk!

Cheers.

Chari

is taking cycles in train allowed ?

j_venu - 18 December, 2009 - 08:42

I had also tried,  it is mostly on schedule , Tickets in passenger train is very cheap. There are monthly passes available also.

However   hopping using bus from  home –station   and again  station – office  (hebbal  - cantonment  bus ,  cantonment – kr puram  train ,  Kr puram to Mahadevpura – by bus )

 takes  lot of time .  My experience is direct buses  fare better with respect to time when I consider my overall travel time . ( bus  + train = 1:20 mins, only bus – 1 hr)

 

I am not sure If they allow taking cycles in Passenger Trains,  any information on the same would be helpful.

Further Info Required

RKCHARI - 18 December, 2009 - 10:40

Dear Vinod & Venu,

Would either of you be able to give me similar train timing chart on the reverse side - i.e. from Whitefield to Contonement or City Station?

I live in Whitefield and have often to take a train to Chennai . Is there anyway I can hop on to this IR trains at appropriate time to reach City/Cantonement from where I could catch the Chennai Train?

Any light on this aspect would help please.

Regards,

Chari

@venu & Chari

vinod_shankar - 18 December, 2009 - 14:08

@Venu:  I haven't seen anyone taking their cycle along, i doubt if there is any provision to carry cycles as these passengers trains are mostly Mainline EMU's.    But may be u can park your cycles at the stations

I agree it doesn't work for you because u travel from hebbal to mahadevpura.  Its useful for me because, from home i reach cantonment station by bus in 15 min + 40 min train journey+15 min from whitefiled station to my office at varthur kodi by big-1 bus.  If i do the same journey by taking a bus to shivajinagar and then to varthur..on an average it would take me 1hr 30min to reach office, and on some bad days it can go upto 2 hours also.  The train provides reliability in terms of average time taken to reach office, which the bus doesn't.  One other big releif, unlike roads is there is no constant honking/pile up of vehicles.  The comfort factor is high in a train.

@RK Chari

Please find the data you requested in the following link.  Whitefield-to-Bangalore city junction

Regars,

vinod

 

Shame we have to workaround

idontspam - 18 December, 2009 - 14:13

Admit we are resourceful, but, I think it is pathetic we have to make do with such workarounds while SWR/GoK cannot work out a mutually beneficially CRS for this city utilizing prime land within the city. 

Meanwhile, here is a bicycle enabled train. If we have a commuter rail to Tumkur, Mysore, Doddballapur etc we may be able to run one of these.

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