Bangalore and Mysore High speed Railway corridor
This article is about the proposed High Speed Rail routes and Corridors within Karnataka State. The Indian Railways have decided to introduce about 6 high speed rail routes in the country. The routes concerned with Karnataka are one of Chennai – Bangalore – Coimbatore- Ernakulam route with a corridor between Bangalore and Mysore. Another possible route is between Kasargod and Mangalore/Udupi.
After the metro and mono rail systems for the cities, the next railway infrastructure item on priority is the high speed rail system, a counter part of the bullet trains of other developed countries. The Indian Railways have in principle decided to go for the high speed railway corridor projects and have identified about 6 routes. One of the route or corridor for high speed trains service selected is the route of Chennai – Bengaluru – Coimbatore – Ernakulum. These routes along with the other 5 identified projects have the green signal from the railways. According to the secretary to the State Infrastructure Development Department (SIDD) the railways have agreed to its proposal to conduct a feasibility study for including the Bangalore - Mysore corridor in the route. The SIDD may entrust the survey work to the Railways' study team instead of having a separate team for the Bangalore - Mysore route. If, after the survey the Railways do not go ahead with the Bangalore Mysore project the State can go ahead with the project separately based on the Railways' report. In the meantime Mr E Sreedharan the Principal Adviser to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRCL) who commissioned the Konkan Railways and the Delhi Metro Rail, has written to the Chief Minister of the State, Sri Sadananda Gowda stating that a high speed railway corridor between Bangalore and Mysore is justified with a length of about 110 km. This distance can be covered within half an hour by nonstop service between the centers with the speed of about 350 km/ph. On the basis of this advice the State Government may decide to go for separate feasibility study through a private firm. However the SIDD has suggested that since the railways have agreed to conduct the study there is no need to go for private service. The feasibility study will include the aspects of the route to be followed, the technical standards to be adopted, cost estimation of the route, forecast of the possible usage by commuters, funding avenues, financial feasibility, period to be taken for the project completion, legal aspects and the arrangements necessary to implement the project. The routes identified and proposed by the railways for the high speed rail projects are Chennai-Bangalore – Coimbatore - Ernakulam route, Delhi-Chandigarh route, Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, Hyderabad-Vijawada-Chennai route, Howrah- Haldia route, and Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna route. As per the proposed projects the Railways plans to run high-speed trains at about 250 km/ph as against the present speed of 160 km/ph running on some routes now. The proposed feasibility studies by the Railways include the Bangalore Mysore corridor in its proposed Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore- Ernakulam route. The DMRCL has done a feasibility study for a high speed rail corridor between the State capital of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram to the Northern end Town, Kasargod of Kerala covering a distance of 560 km which can be covered by 3 hours by the proposed high speed rail trains. Kerala has accepted the report and has entrusted the task of preparing the detailed project report to DMRCL. Kerala proposes to start the work in April 2012 and complete by March 2020. The DMRCL Principal Adviser Mr Sreedharan has suggested to the Karnataka Government that the Kerala corridor of Thiruvananthapuram - Kasargod may be extended to Mangalore/Udupi in Karnataka. Mr Sreedharan has offered the services of the DMRCL for the Bangalore Mysore and Kasargod Mangalore stretches for preparing the feasibility reports if required. The high speed trains as of now are with 8 coaches (6 coaches and 1 trailer coach attached to the motorized coaches at each at both ends) with a passenger carrying capacity of about 820 per trip. High speed railway corridor in Karnataka
Bangalore and Mysore High speed Railway corridor
Routes identified by railways for High speed rail routes
Kasargod Mangalore/Udupi High speed rail routes
DMRCL service offers
Some features of the high speed rail projects
If Karnataka is interested, DMRCL will be happy to offer the terms and conditions for taking up the feasibility survey or other services connected with the projects.
