BENGLAURU : More than a year after it was completed and ready for inauguration, Bengaluru’s first airport-like train station with centralised air-conditioning will commence operations from Monday night.
The Rs 314-crore Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminal at Byappanahalli will start operations without much fanfare with a formal inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected later. To begin with, the south western railway (SWR) has shifted three pairs of long-distance trains from Banaswadi station to Sir MV terminal.
The Banaswadi-Ernakulam tri-weekly Express (no. 12684) will be the first to run from the terminal, which was initially scheduled to be India’s first modernised railway terminal, at 7pm Monday.
Now, the city terminal will be the third such station given that the other two — in Habibganj (Rani Kamlapati), Madhya Pradesh and Gandhinagar, Gujarat — were inaugurated before the Sir MV Terminal although they were completed later. The work on the terminal was supposed to be completed in December 2018, but it missed several deadlines. Though it was ready in March 2021, a formal inauguration was delayed as they didn’t get the date from the Prime Minister’s office.
“This is the first greenfield project where Indian railways constructed a world-class terminal. Other two stations (Habibganj and Gandhinagar) where the existing ones were re-developed by the IRSDC,” E Vijaya, SWR chief PRO (in-charge), said.
In Bengaluru, this will be the third railway coaching terminal (where trains originate/terminate their trips) after KSR Bengaluru City and Yeshwantpur stations. While KSR, which is part of the Mysuru line, has been operational since 1882, Yeshwantpur station on the Doddaballapur line was built in 1892.
Vijaya said the Bengaluru railway division of SWR came into existence only in 1981. “The railway track was predominantly a meter gauge and narrow gauge during that time but now the entire Bengaluru division has only broadgauge route,” she said.