South Western Railway zone

South Western Railway
ನೈಋತ್ಯ ರೈಲ್ವೆ

10-South Western Railway
Locale Karnataka
Dates of operation 2003–present
Predecessor Southern Railway, South Central Railway, Central Railway
Track gauge Broad gauge
Headquarters Club Road, Keshwapur Hubli Karnataka
Website SWR official website

The South Western Railway(Kannada: ನೈಋತ್ಯ ರೈಲ್ವೆ) is one of the 17 railway zones in India. It is headquartered at Hubli and comprises 3 divisions namely Hubli, Mysore, and Bangalore. The 4th division at Gulbarga will come up shortly and preparations of work has already begun.[1] The zone came into existence on 1 April 2003. Important named trains operated by this zone are : Karnataka Express (Bangalore-New Delhi), Rani Chennamma Express (Bangalore-Kolhapur), Gol Gumbaz Express (Mysore-Solapur), Basava Express (Mysore-Bagalkote), Siddaganga Intercity Express (Bangalore-Dharwad), Karnataka Sampark Kranti Express (Bangalore-New Delhi) and (Bangalore-Chandigarh), Hampi Express (Mysore-Hubli), Lalbagh Express (Bangalore-Chennai), Shatabdi Express (Bangalore-Chennai), Tippu Express (Bangalore-Mysore), Island express (Bangalore-Kanyakumari) and Goa Express (Vasco Da Gama-Hazrat Nizamuddin).

Plans are afoot to lay more lines & introduce more trains in this zone as the rail density is less compared to other zones and states in India.

Map of South Western Railway zone (in Cyan)

Area Covered

South Western Railway covers most of the railway lines in the state of Karnataka.

Works on various new lines such as Belgaum-Bagalkote-Raichur, Belgaum-Dharwad, Belgaum-Sawantwadi, Bagalkote-Kudachi, Munirabad-Mehboobnagar, Tumkur-Chitradurga-Davangere, Shimoga-Harihar and Tumkur-Rayadurg are yet to be started.

Passenger trains were recently introduced on newly laid Kottur-Harihar and Kadur-Chikmagalur line.

Electrification and doubling of railway lines

Karnataka has the least number of electrified and/or doubled broad gauge lines compared to other states in India (5%). This is mentioned in the official web page belonging to the ministry of Railways:[2]

Currently the Mysore-Bangalore section is being doubled. The section between Bangalore-Yeliyur (100 km) and Mysore-Naganahalli(7 km) has been doubled and opened to traffic.Progress on other sections is in full swing. The Bangalore-Hubli line is being doubled in isolated patches. While Bangalore-Tumkur was doubled and opened to traffic in 2007, progress on other sections has been painfully slow. The doubling of the Arsikere-Birur section of the same line was completed in November 2012. Bellary-Hospet line is completely doubled and opened for traffic, Hubli-Gadag line doubling is in progress.

Digital Division

The Mysore Division of South Western Railways will be designated as "Digital Division" after fully adopting its current technology harnessing programme. Government of India had asked Railways divisions to cut red tape and reduce paper work in offices. All the officials will adopt technologies like WhatsApp and Google Drive to share reports and other documents. This will save lot of papers being used for circulating reports as done currently. Two web based helplines have been launched so that digitised information can be shared among different officials. The inspection reports regarding maintenance, passenger amenities, cleanliness, electronics and communication etc. will be managed by a new software which is under construction now. These measures will cut down redundant works, reduce number of registers and reports maintained by officials, reduce paper consumption and improve the efficiency and celerity of operations.[3]

Project Unigauge

Since 2007, the SWR is entirely Indian gauge. SWR has many WDG4 and WDP4 currently based at diesel loco sheds Hubli and Krishnarajapuram.

External links

References

  1. ↑ "New railway division in Gulbarga to be under SWR". The Hindu. 2014-03-06. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2015-12-25.
  2. ↑ 2010 electrification by states
  3. ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/on-course-to-becoming-a-digital-division/article6421304.ece. Retrieved from 'The Hindu' on 18 September 2014

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