Report - Bangalore local train ride & meet

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Commuter RailPublic Transport

Ah! Ufff!. What an eye opener. Easily the best Praja meeting of all. I am so lost for words here. So would be IDS, Murali, Naveen and Manjari you bet. Otherwise, we would have logged in our reports yesterday itself.

IDS took the train from Hebbal. Naveen, Manjari and myself got on to it at Belandur station at 7:10. Murali sir joined in near Sarjapur Road at about 7:20. We were at Hosur station by around 7:50. Had our morning coffee there as the engine changed ends. Return ride started at 8:10 am. We were back at Belandur station by 8:45 or so. Need to check with IDS and Manjari when they reached Hebbal. But all in all, after watching clean and empty train, and nice little stations, all so close to the busy corridors and suburbs of Bangalore, we were all wondering why, why is it that this magnificent option is sitting underutilized while we all debate public transportation!? Anyway, here are the pictures.

The Belandur Road station. 1 km from Outer Ring Road, tiny, sleepy, more like a picnic spot right now. Stone's throw from Cisco office.

There was no one around to give us our tickets. But the counter opened by the time train arrived. 6 Rs per person for a ride till Hosur. IDS paid Rs 10 Hebbal to Hosur. How much would you be willing to pay for a comfortable smoke and traffic free ride from Hebbal to Hosur? Rs 30? 40?

Train arriving at BLRR

Murali joined us at Karmelaram, right next to Sarjapur Road, not very far from Wipro campus, and the sub-urban area building up around it.

Heelalige station, seemed very close to Hosur Road.

Missed taking pics at Anekal Road, but here is crossing Hosur Road.

At Hosur station.

At Hosur Station, ordering our morning coffee.

We did ride with tickets. Damn cheap by the way. Though I wouldn't mind paying more for more modern and reliable services, would you?

Not many trains at the stations we crossed, had ample space around the tracks for potential track doubling work. And buildings crowding around Hosur Road corridor were visible all along our ride.

So here it is folks, a story yet to be told and explored by our city. Reminds me of that famous sanskrit saying about the deer (Mriga) and Kasturi.

PS: Here is the exact route of the CRS test ride reported above, a detailed map, from Hebbal to Hosur, with all the stations pointed out. See for yourself, how this route can serve job and residential areas around Banaswadi, Outer Ring Road, Sarjapur Road, Electronics City, Jigani/Anekal and more.

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Comments

Sweet ride, Huge potential

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 Train arrived in Hebbal on time around 6:35. On return there was a slight wait at Banaswadi and reached Hebbal by 9:40. The last mile was circuitous and the solutions for Hebbal is here. Tension free ride. Will always reach on time unlike road traffic. Has huge potential to scale to a full fledged commuter rail service (CRS) with last mile connectivity, extension of service to other places like Tumkur, Kengeri etc, track doubling, increased frequency in that order. We will tackle these in other posts.

 Meanwhile enjoy this geotagged set

Train ride to Hosur and back

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 Great description folks and nice report...could almost smell the coffee

Wish I was there...

Bangalore Local Train - More Pictures

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SB & IDS have already included many pictures in their descriptions of the train between Yeswantapur & Hosur. So, I do not want to repeat the same pictures & the ones below are those that are not duplicated elsewhere - I think !

 

  Pranav & Manjari waiting at Bellandur station.

 

  Train passing level X-ing at Karmelaram.

 

  Train approaching Karmelaram stn.

 

  A luggage section is included on the train - a scooter was loaded in after payment for luggage.

Adavtange CRS!

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IDS, Naveen, Manjari, Murali and SB,

I have been little out of action for couple of months. Back and trying to get active again on Praja. Hopefully I can find something that I can contribute from Off-site.

Thanks for taking the initiative and riding the CRS. From Hebbal to Hosur in less than 90 mins is really amazing travel commute choice. I don't think any other mode of transport can beat that.

Guys, can you identify the high density Office/industry areas this train passes By/through? SB mentioned Cisco and Wipro campuses.

Let us continue the efforts on CRS and make it a viable commuter choice in Bangalore. My worry is due to no publicity and no strategic marketing, SWR might be tempted to discontinue the service.

Start would be to discuss and list the advantages that this train brings to the city, companies and localities that can make use of.

Meeting with SWR DM to discuss and show the support for CRS would be a good beginning too. Also encourage people to take CRS on Bus Day would be one idea to explore.

Syed

Scooter & cycles

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 A luggage section is included on the train - a scooter was loaded in after payment for luggage

The scooter was offloaded at Banaswadi, If one carriage was made available for cycles the last mile will become a non-issue for a great majority.

Scooter getting off

can you identify the high density Office/industry areas this train passes By/through? SB mentioned Cisco and Wipro campuses.

Manjari made a good point, there are a lot of colleges we noticed along the way. For the kind of price points YH1 offers, add a cycle carriage and you have converts in colleges. Was trying to spot Colleges on a map, maybe this is some offline work?

quite an eye opener

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Karmelram station - camera facing North (Bellandur side)

Swank looking Hosur railway platform

It's Karmelram stn (the picture confirms it) as different from the various spelling versions in the earlier postings by others (Perhaps comes from the Carmel convent in the vicinity). The station is just about 150M from the G3 route, branching off (to the left, facing Sarjapur) some 100M before the level crossing.

The fare from Karmelram to Hosur was just Rs 5/-.

The Helalige station, the first stop after Karmelram must be just about 1 Km from Narayana Hrudayalaya.

So, if I were to be commuting on a regular basis to Hosur, Bommasandra/ Jigani/ Attibele Indl area, the fastest and cheapest mode for me would be to take the G3 from Koramangala to Karmelram, and then catch this train. Of course, the connectivity at the other end is perhaps a question mark presently.

Whatever, this commuting option certainly holds great potential.

Muralidhar Rao

Fantastic

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This is really great - I hope the train idea survives - and this doesnt go the way of the HopOnHopOff move.

I would be very happy if they introduces a southbound train - from Hebbal to Kengeri or some such thing. I commute from Malleswaram to Jnanabharathi - and it would be very convenient for me to go by train.

Ramesh

 

Made it to my movie on time, thanks to CRS :)

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I was told I am pushing it, maybe I was pushing it a bit as well.
I had a movie to watch at 10am Cunningham road and here I was up at 6am getting ready and all excited to take a train :)

I was picked up by Pranav and Naveen at 6:45am near Kadabeesanahalli. We went to the Bellandur railway station and honestly I was a little ashamed that I didnt even know its location even though I work and stay on outer ring road.

Most of the exciting parts about the trip have already been covered in the above posts so I will jump directly  to how I made it to the movie.
After an interesting conversation with IDS, I got off at Banaswadi at 9:30, took an auto and rushed to the theater and was there at 9:55 for a 10am show.

Best part it took me Rs. 6 from Bellandur to Hosur, Rs. 10 for a ticket from Hosur to Hebbal and it took me Rs 45 from Banaswadi to Cunnigham :(

I went from Bellandur-Hosur and then Hosur-Banaswadi in Rs 16 in a span of 2 and a half hrs without being stuck in traffic without people honking and without all the smoke. I wouldnt have felt bad had I missed the movie because the train trip had already made my day.

And more ...

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Adding more pics as time permits

More from Belandur Road station, interestingly code named BLRR which is a lot more like bangalore than Bangalore City (SBC) itself!

Somewhere along the way (Anekal road station?), while 3 of them were in deep discussions on CRS

Our train's information board - headed for Devanahalli on return !!

The train HY1 is NOT on time

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Recently, we had to commute to Lingarajapuram (reach by 10 am)  for around 10 days. As I was hooked to the CRS news (almost read every bit of related news presented by google searches and also all related discussions/news on praja.in), I was more than eager to try it. Though I personally never took the train, here's how my family used it.

I would drop them at Carmelaram station (also spelt at Karmelaram, Karmelram, Karmelarama but the IR code is CRLM and the post office name is Carmelaram) around 8.30 am (HY1 scheduled stop is at 8.42 am). In our experience, this train NEVER made it on time. As a rule it always arrived AFTER 9 am and some times as late as an hour. So much so that in a few days we grew comfortable reaching the station around 9 am and never missed the train :-)

The train trip to Banaswadi took hardly 10-15 minutes.

Not so lucky in the return journey (no CRS train until at least around 4 pm) in the afternoon and it was an ordeal (BMTC + Auto) which sometimes took 2 hours but waiting for bus in the hot sun with no shelter (unlike railway station) was not very pleasant. Add to it the crowds (even in the Volvo bus).

The frequency of the service needs to be made at least hourly for it to kick off in a big way. And timeliness is a BIG concern.

great work!

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guys,

this is great work! great report. can i also suggest you mark this on a map? that way we can share this with a singla image - the cost, time, route etc and use it to popularise this.

maybe you should suggest the railways to have a train day to popularise this!!

 

 

 


Seminar/Workshop on CRS !

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One way to bring some convergence on support to CSR would be by organizing a seminar/workshop on CSR with all the stake holders presenting their side of the story.

Panal should include representatives from Railways, BMTC, BBMP, MLA/MPs, Transport experts, BCIC, Industry/Companies and Public.

Let me know if anyone would take the lead on ground. It will be an wonderful opportunity to publicise PRAJA, making inroads into railways as well.

Regards,

Syed

The map from CTTS

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This is not done very well - a thick line overlaid on top of a scanned city map. But it gives you an idea of the reach commuter rail network can have in Bangalore, and how it integrates with other modes of public transport.

As for the exact route we took for the CRS test ride reported above, here is the detailed map, from Hebbal to Hosur, with all the stations pointed out. See for yourself, how this route can serve job and residential areas around Outer Ring Road, Sarjapur Road, Electronices City, and Jigani/Anekal and more.

Javascript is required to view this map.

 

Amazing work guys

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Kudos all those who were a part of this exercise...Missed not being a part of it. It brings attention sharply, to use the existing tracks for better.    May our CM can take this train on his off late hyped city inpsections, which will bring in the much needed attention to changes timings and increase frequencies

vinod

 

nice map; capacity?

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not the rites one..the other one...:-)

we should work to popularize this. btw, does anyone have any idea of the capacity of these trains?


Capacity of the train

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From what I read in one of sanjeev's posts it said that "Each coach can seat a maximum of 110 passengers. So, over 500 passengers can commute on each trip" 

I know there were 6 coaches.

Great stuff

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 SB, others,

Great stuff.  Imagine having a train like this every 30 minutes from Kengeri to YPR or Whitefield.  If the powers that be are serious about decongesting the city they need to pursue this.

Also looking forward to 2013 when the Phase 1 of Metro come online.  What a pleasure it would be knowing that you can reach MG ROad from Jayanagar in 25 minutes exactly day in and day out.

Srivathsa

Drive safe.  It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

Capacity

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does anyone have any idea of the capacity of these trains?

These rakes are just a stop gap arrangement. We cant let CRS run on these rolling stocks in the long run. The potential lies in a regular commuter rail type rolling stock. 

Like this...

...and this

Amazing Experience

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Hi All,

I really missed due to the meeting in the office.  This way,  we at Praja are giving much needed publicity  for these Local Trains. Photos are really good and give very good impression on the stations and Train. If SWR starts these trains from Kengeri, the ridership will really will go up.

This Local Train from Yesvanthpur to Hosur  will really help lot of commuters if they  improve upon the  timings and align with office timings. 

Existing 5 Passanger Train Services between Bangalore / Yesvanthpur to Hosur below :

Sr No    Train No        From Station      Dep       To Station         Arr.

 

01           YH-1            Yesvanthpur         06:20     Hosur              07:55

02           572              Bangalore city      07:15     Hosur              08:32

03           YH-2            Yesvanthpur        15:35      Hosur              17:05

04           574              Yesvanthpur        16:05      Hosur              17:31

 05            SD-1           Bangalore City     18:30      Hosur              19:50   

06           DS-1            Hosur                 06:36      Bangalore         08:30           

07           HY-1            Hosur                  08:10     Yesvanthpur     09:50   

08           573              Hosur                  08:28     Yesvanthpur     10:50    

09           571              Hosur                  16:48      Bangalore        19:00   

10           HY-2            Hosur                  17:45      Yesvanthpur     19:20

 

I have seen many IT guys travelling from Hosur to Belandur by these Local Trains working in WIPRO / CISCO. As mentioned by others,  Timing and frequency with last mile connectvity are the key factors in success of these CRS.

 

 

We should have Commuter Rail Day. This we can do it by giving good feedback to DRM of SWR Bangalore and writing letter to our MoS Railways Shri K H Muniyappa and  MD of BMTC.

Comprehensive report on CRS !

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@sanjay

Thanks for publishing the timings. Moving forward to support CRS, we may need to do some ground work to compile a comprehensive report listing the benefits that we can reap from this service and the missing items specially the low hanging ones that civic agencies can easily provide.

There is ZERO info available on Railway Websites on Bangalore CRS. If somebody can provide me the links or data, I can prepare the report that can be submitted to DRM, MoS Railways and all the stakeholders.

Following data inputs would be required:

  1. Route Details with stop names - Map and a table
  2. Timings
  3. Daily Fare, Monthly Pass Fare
  4. Vicinity information for each Stop/Station - Nearby areas, companies, Schools/Colleges, Hospitals etc.
  5. Last Mile connectivity information for each station
  6. Benefits of Each station/Stop
  7. List of missing/needed amenities at each station including signs, parking, nearby bus stop/service etc.

Did I miss anything? Pls free to add more to the list.

Syed

CRS Exclusive pages on Praja!

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Do you think it will hep CRS publicity with Praja hosting CRS exclusive web pages with passenger information like Route, Stops/Stations, Timings and some local directory etc?

I think it will. It can be similar to the Bus Day pages with its own banner and downlaodable information.

Praja TECH, would you support this?

Syed

 

Bus Day/ Public Transport Day

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To make public aware of t he local train service, the local train should be marketed just like the Bus day. The bus day ad'sprobably should have Train service. Buses can provide the services to final destinations from the train stops.

- Ajay

Ajay

CRS exclusive web pages is a good idea

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I agree with Syed, it would be a good idea to collate all the information we have on a page which is easy to access and easy to read.

But I also think it is something that the SWR should do. We could help them in case they want but honestly it is more effective if they put their man hrs in it.

CRS publicity meeting

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I have setup an event for a meeting next Saturday so that we could all meet and decide on what needs to be done for publicizing the train.

Exclusive Web Page for CRS

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@Syed

Its really good idea to have  CRS exclusive web pages in Praja and  provide big publicity along with Bus Day / Public Transport Day..

@ Manjari

We should help SWR officals in bringing out more publicity, they may be reluctant to do that .  Also BMLTA  & IDD are     co-ordinating with Railways for the Local Trains, but not much progress.

I tried to meet IDD  Chairman Mr V Madhu few weeks back, but he is very busy in  the HSRL propsal clearance ( we all know for what reason this project is given high priority ) and did not give an appointment to meet even after several follow up with his office.

We should  put  all our efforts  in publicity or either meeting SWR DRM, MoS for Railways Shri K H Muniyappa,  BMLTA Director,  co-ordinate with BMTC Director to provide feeder service to local Trains or ensuring BMTC buses are allowed inside SSC, Yesvanthpur Stations,  MD of NAMMA METRO  for better integration at Yesvanthpur Station, Mysore Road Station and  Byapanahalli stations.

Already,  Pranav and myself have set up Project Commuter Rail system for Bangalore and sub activity Input uploaded :  praja.in/en/projects/3110/tasks/local-train-commuter-rail-inputs-uploaded

 

awesome

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awesome stuff.

two key things. ids's cycle car. syed's mapping sinks and sources around stations, add synchronize bus & auto services.

hyderabad killed its crs bcoz they could not get their city buses to sync with their city trains.

 

Very nice report. Sad about

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Very nice report. Sad about the lack of good feeder service.
I am in B'lore after a long time and thought about attending the monthly meeting to put faces to names (and names to praja names) but too late! Hopefully next time ...


An eye opener....

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This is a wonderful eye opener for most of the people of bangalore who does not know that the time taken between hosur and bangalore can be so less.  If people start using this facility and create more awareness and in turn demand for more trains on this route, the bangalore - ITPL - electroncity - Hosur corridor can be accessible by the public very easily.

 

Bangalore to Whitefield CRS

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Is there any trains from Yesvantpur to Whitefield ? Could DEMUs be introduced  from Yesvantpur-Hebbal-Banswadi-Byappanhalli-Krishnarajapuram-Whitefield? or from  Bidadi-Kengeri-Jnanabharti-nayandahalli-Bangalore City -Cantonment- Blore East--Byappanhalli-KR Puram-Whitefield itself?

Whitefield station is just a couple of  kms away from Salarpuria GR Tech park-Brigade tech park-ITPL and host of IT companies near Sai baba hospital? 

BMTC could introduce shuttles between Whitefield station  to these  above mentioned office blocks.

The IT companies would welcome this as it would cut down their employee transportation costs  by a huge margin .(at present thousands of employees are transported by buses, tempo travellers, sumos and indicas)

The DEMUs could be replaced with EMUs at later stages   once electrification is completed on the above routes

Will required by Authorities and IT companies to come forward

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Already the above segments are completly electrified and  Railways can run EMU trains only now itself without waiting.

Yesvantpur-Hebbal-Banswadi-Byappanhalli-Krishnarajapuram-Whitefield      and   Bidadi-Kengeri-Jnanabharti-nayandahalli-Bangalore City -Cantonment- Blore East--Byappanhalli-KR Puram-Whitefield  are completly electrified with double tyrack except single track between Yesvanthpur to buappanahalli.

This will not only help all IT companies even people who are working in Automobile  industry at Bidadi and Pennaya.  Govt office like Banks, LIC, Post Office, State Govt Office employee will get benifited.

Simillarly at Dodballapur Integrated Textile Park  ( DITP ) operating on 50 Acres and even BIAL  staff  working in different departments,   Wheel and Axle Plant employees, Bharat Electronic Employees  will get better public transport with Local / Commuter  Train

Now all IT Companies, Automobile Manufacturers,   Textile companies  and other PSU Managment should ask Railways and State Govt to start  Full fledge Commuter Rail for Bangalore,  METRO, Mono Rail and HSRL will only cover small portion of  Bangalore and cost of Commuter rail is  one tenth of METRO / HSRL / MONO and even fare will be very low in case of Commuter Rail.

Integration of train and bus services

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The train and bus services could be integrated. Now that almost every village in Bangalore district  is connected by BMTC, new bus routes have to be initiated from the suburban railway stations in association with educational institutions/factories/offices, etc.

For example:

At Heelelige, Bus service could be run between Heelelige railway station to Silk board, which covers Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bommasandra Industrial area, Electronics city.

Similarly, Bus service could be provided betwen Heelelige and Jigani, which serves Narayana Hridayalaya, Bommasandra Indl area and Jigani indl area.

Existing service between Chandapur and Silk board/Jigani could be extended up to Heelelige, which is hardly a distance.

At Karmelaram, the bus service could be initiated from the railway station upto Silk board, which covers Sarjapur road, Wipro, HSR layout.

At Bellandur railway station, service sould be provided from the railway station to Silk board and beyond, which serves the IT corridor along the ring road. In addition, the bus service could be provided from the station to Kadugodi via Varthur.

At Anekal, the bus service could begin from railway station as per the arrival/departure of the train up till Shirdi sai Engineering college. The Anekal-Jigani/Bannerughatta/Chandapur trip could begin from the railway station than from the town, as the distance is hardly a km or 2.

Educational institutions like BIET, Heelelige, Alliance Business Academy, Anekal, are located adjescent to the railway stations.

Another advantage is that, the BMTC depots are very much in the vicinity of these railway stations, and hence the last leg connectivity could be planned to the perfection.

I have noticed at Hosur railway station that bus service is provided from railway station to bus stand for a nominal fare of Rs. 3 coinciding with train arrival and departure time, which has to be followed regularly, though.

Thoughtfull inputs

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The railways have not publiced about such shuttle services, even when every one is crying for good local transport !! All eyes are on;ly on Metro ! If the existing services between Bangalore -  Hosur ; Bangalore -  Chickballapur , are announced and given publicity , many people will use it and the railways may add more shuttles. Probably we in PRAJA should take initiative and train schedules, cost, and frequencies, days of operation , etc ..on e-mails , the message can spread. Similarly on oyher shuttles. This  work  may have to be shared with SWR authorites also.

Kuram Srninvasa RAMANUJAM

YH-1, YH-2, YD-1

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Here you can see the train info on  the following link ( this is not  Indian Rail website ), but they have updated these 3  CRS Trains of Bangalore  latest timings  after juky 1st  is yet to be updated on this website.

This  website is still better then  Railway,  on local Train info of Bangalore city

http://indiarailinfo.com/search/997/1578?kkk=1279978064593

http://indiarailinfo.com/search/997/4607?kkk=1279978317031

Accessibility planning

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"With the benefit of hindsight and experiences of Peenya, the new industrial hubs will have the following edges: A dedicated feeder line; modern residential township complete with shopping mall, cinema and health centres; access to railway (Bangalore-Pune line passes beside) and NH 4 and proximity to Dobbspet, the large scale industrial hub"

So here is something that is coming up around the existing train line and will be criminal to ignore commuter rail if this is on stream.You can see how planning train commute to this will work better than trying to come up with catch phrases like the walk to work etc.

On a side note they should hire some intl consultants to plan units with adequate greenery and wide roads. It is easy to make 15 feet roads like peenya without parking & loading yards and make life hell for everyone involved

Sweet Ride really a missed opportunity

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 I missed the ride too, like Zenrainman sir. Now that Praja and others have taken up the CRS issue, it looks like that Bangalore too will have the local trains to boot like Mumbai. When compared to the road widening issue this one looks pretty simple, as the existing infrastructure can be used profitably.

frequency chart of trains

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i made this chart based on timetable data to figure out which parts of the day had most trains. As you can see there are plenty of trains running on the city-ypr and city-kjm sections which can be utilized by commuters. If there was a little more publicity given to the timings and tickets were easier to buy, this would become a very attractive option. Imagine Majestic-Krishnarajapuram at 6 bucks within 30mins!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

 Good work Arun, can you

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 Good work Arun, can you explain what the dotted lines indicate in the graphic?

parking facility

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Hi all,

I am primarily located in hosur and by going thru this page got lot of interest to make use of the train facility to commute to office near CISCO office(Intel).

But no where in this page, the parking facility for the railway stations like bellandur gate or  carmelaram is mentioned...

Do we have the parking facility in these local stations? Because my office is around 3.8kms from carmelaram/belandur station for which parking facility for cycle/bike is mandate.

 

Re: Parking facility at Belandur/Carmelaram

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Hi baranikumarhtsl ,

There is no parking facility available.at Belandur Road (for sure) or Carmelaram (based on hearsay). However, autos are available. In case there is significant number, we can discuss with http://orrcaa.com

PS: I travel daily between Banaswadi and Belandur by YP-HSR train. I will be posting detailed report on this shortly.

Sanjay

 

 

Decision Making Info

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Thanks for this detailed information what you shared here.

I am woking in Koramangala. I was staying in BG Road here. But, there was some need for me to move to Hosur. But, due to travel i was hesitating to do that.

 

The search was ended here. After i saw this blog, i decided to move to Hosur. Now, almost 3 months i am travelling from Hosur to Koramangala.

Thanks a lot. 

With Regards,

Sakthi Murugan Subramani (SMS)

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