Regarding Train Day
I saw a write up in Bangalore Mirror yesterday. I am not able to access the BM website somehow to paste a link -> it would not open at home yesterday and now some filter at work is blocking it.
Anyway, what I gathered is that a Train Day (roughly along the lines of Bus Day) is planned. It looked like it was by ORRCA (Viswanath). The only negative seems to be the relative lack of trains, but this seems like a good idea for publicity and disseminating information.
Is anybody from the commuter rail team involved with this?
PS: Will add the story link when I am able to access.
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Get off buses, hop on to trains
BANGALORE MIRROR - 06 Aug 2012
Get off buses, hop on to trains
After the success of Bus Day, techies are gearing up for Train Day in September. The advantages: Trains are cheaper, safer, faster and less stressful
Chetan R chetan.rudrappa@timesgroup.com
Move over Bus Day, Train Day is approaching. After thesuccessoftheformer,a forum called Wheels is working towards making techies consider trains as a safer, speedier and cheaper mode of travel. And, of course, it will also mean less stress, less pollution and less congestion on city roads.
“Today, driving or riding on city roads is causing havoc on the health and stress levels of every road user. But trains will save precious time,” said S Vishwanath, chairman of Wheels, a forum of techies that worked with BMTC to make Bus Day a success. “We are seriously working on Train Day, a day when techies will give up buses, cabs and cars,” he added.
If all goes well, starting from next month, a designated day on the first week of every month will be observed as Train Day.
At first, the initiative will be targeted at techies residing in areas like Rajajinagar, Malleswaram and Seshadripuram and commuting to the Whitefield-KR Puram tech corridor for work. They will board trains at the city junction and will reach K R Puram in 30 minutes.
“Otherwise, it takes two hours to reach Whitefield and K R Puram by bus,” Vishwanath said. “Similarly, it will take no less than one-and-a-half hoursbycabsandoveranhourbytwowheelers. But train travel is speedier and safer.”
Enthusiastic techies from Wheels will begin the experimental ride from the first week of September. Company cabs will be used as a feeder service to transport them from K R Puram railwaystationtotheworkplaceandback. They will park their vehicles near City and Malleswaram railway stations before boarding the train.
GETTING LOGISTICS IN PLACE
The team from Wheels is already gearing up with the logistics to support the first phase – train charts, feeder service arrangements, contact details of the team handling it, etc.
Some techies from the Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA) will also join the efforts.
Techies are open to the initiative. “Commuting to the IT corridors during peak hours is a major problem. But this way, we can avoid jam-packed roads. We will try this out for a day or two when the campaign starts. If it works, we will continue,” techie Sandeep M told BANGALOREMIRROR.
We can definitely work with ORRCA and others!
This is really a nice idea and opportunity for publicising the Namma Railu Campaign. Will love to work with ORRCA and others who have initiated this novel idea.
Will try to get in touch with ORRCA for more details.
BTW, every PRAJA member is part of Namma Railu team. :)
-Syed
Congrats VIshwanath &
Congrats VIshwanath & ORRCA... way to go.
@ psraja
@psraja - thanks for finding the article.
However, you have reproduced the entire Bangalore Mirror article here. Please edit it - you can quote small sections and give link to the articvle on BM website. This sort of a full copy paste is against Praja posting guidelines.
Spoked to Vishwanath, planning to meet him this week
He is aware of the praja activities on Public Transport.
We need to work together to make this happen and this is good thing coming p with RITES report.
SWR & BMTC can play major role in this and will get more citizens to use the existing few Commuter Rails.
Let me know who all interested in this and able to spare time on this for Train Day concept
Thanks Sanjay and Raja
Looking for more people to come forward on this from different areas and different ideas how this Train day can be planned.
Today's VijayaKarnataka Kannada Paper
@ Sanjeev reg train day
Glad to hear you spoke to Viswanath. He actually logs in here on Praja and posts sometimes. Before going on to the action part of train day, can we discuss the objectives and expected outcomes here first?
Since there are a finite number of Prajagalu, it is a good thing for us to stay focussed on what needs to be done and leverage partners such as ORRCA. The main objective now is to build up a movement for CRS that convinces GoK and eventually also IR and GoI to move on this. So the goal is to spread the word and get converts who will actively campaign for this.
One such constituency are the IT workers of Bangalore. ORRCA has a big chunk of them. We need to spread awareness to that population. ORRCA and train day can help.
The part I am not clear about is that there are a limited number of dedicated passenger services running currently. Many trains considered are long distance trains, not all at convenient times. Will SWR add trains currently if a demand is established? I doubt that. This train day at present is more of a publicity stunt than a move to create a long term shift - because the full infrastructure is not already in place.
In bus day, there was BMTC partnership and whatever cribs we may have about that, the push worked. I am not sure that will happen here. I think a better approach is to organize this train day for 2-3 months and frame it as a campaign in suipport of commuter rail. ORRCA or similar organizations can organize shuttle transport from the stations on those days to solve the last mile issue.
Bheema, I agree!
Bheema, I agree 100% with you. Certainly it has to be objective based and need not be observed as 'Ritual' like Bus Day for BMTC.
2-3 observations will certainly bring in more awareness about proposed CRS service. Trick would be to making best use of existing trains for commute on that day. Need to choose routes that at least has one train in both directions in morning and evening.
We need to define the objective and outcome from the Train Day
Its good that Sanjay brought out what we should be looking and how this will help CRS
Their are difficult task from 2-3 angles :
1. Last Mile Connectivity from Stations like Belandur ( no Buses ), Karmelaram with passing buses, Helaligee having no connectivity to Electronic City or Chandapur Industrial Area, Banaswadi Station to different places no bus connectivity.
It may not be different at Whitefiled station
2. Creating more awarness with IT crowds in ORRCA how best they can make use of existing services with last mile connectivity.
3. We need to achive some small step in each train day with SWR authorites and BMTC. It may be having temporary stop for the Intercity Trains or Extending Trains or starting new services where ever possible. This is difficult one but with ORRCS, Wheels Bangalore and Praja with other groups, we can make progress on this with SWR & BMTC.
Finally Train Day is moving with Help of blrwheels & praja
Next month, if things goes as per plan, w will have Train day soon.
Thanks to S Vishwanath, bangalore wheels, things are moving for Train day. Looking for more suggestion for actual users on Last mile connectivity.
Planing to meet DRM soon for this too.
With BMTC is not playing buses on 13th Sept, how about Train
With KSRTC & BMTC buses not playing on 13th Sept, Railway should provide should add more coaches on few local Trains as more people will be using these Trains on 13th Sept.
This is the time we can see how people will use these Trains for travell
We should get some feedback on the 13th sept how the people used Trains to reach office
Sanjeev, others, Can you help
Sanjeev, others,
Can you help me and SB connect to Vishwanath?
We are targetting 11th or 18th march weekend for the Namma Railu week (awareness week), we will be going with many partners like radio, print media, IT mailers, and any other means of reaching out to people.
If ORRCA helps us in this, it would be great reach to people about the namma railu concept, atleast people will be aware of such mode of transport in-and-around bangalore.
Deepak
Deepak, see my email!
Deepak,
I have justs end you an email connecting Vishwanath of ORRCA.
-Syed