Report - Bangalore local train ride & meet

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

Wish I was there...

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

@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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

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...

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.