Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday flagged off trains to Patna, Tatanagar and Kamakhya and a premium train to Katra to enable people visit the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi.
The premium train to Katra was announced in 2014-15 budget by the then Railway minister D V Sadananda Gowda. The train will cover 3,241km in 56 hours thus making it one of the longest trips in the country.
Train number 22679/22680 to Katra will run every Saturdays from February 7. It will leave Yeshwantpur at 11.30 am. Bengaluru-Patna train (22353/22354) will depart from Cantonment station every Sundays at 3:30 pm, while the Bengaluru-Kamakhya Express (22503/22504) will start from Cantonment every Fridays at 10:15 am. The Bengaluru-Tatanagar train 18111/18112 will depart from Yeshwantpur every Sundays at 10 am.
For the first time in the history of Railways, the minister flagged off four trains through a remote from Bangalore City Railway Station. The feat was accomplished with the state-of-the-art communication technology called TPaaS facilitated by RailTel. The event was beamed live to Tatanagar, Patna and Kamakhya station.
TPaaS stands for TelePresence As A Service, which comprises is a very high-end and real life size video conference arrangement that can be projected on high definition screens.
Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda, Member of Parliament P C Mohan, City In charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy, State Tourism Minister R V Deshpande, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao and others were present on the occasion.
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