Whitefield section signalling to increase capacity

The Bangalore Cantonment-Whitefield section of the South Western Railway will soon be able to accommodate about 50 more trains in the network by the end of February.

The automatic signalling on the 19-km stretch is likely to be completed in the next two weekends.

The South Western Railway (SWR) commissioned a part of the completed work on Bangalore Cantonment-Baiyappanahalli West Cabin on Sunday night.

This comes at a time when lakhs of people working in the IT sector in Whitefield have been demanding more suburban trains, as the main road to the eastern edge of the city sees traffic snarls everyday.

The KSR Bengaluru-Baiyyappanahalli-Whitefield is a vital section handling 86 trains per day. A total of 26 short distance and suburban trains also run in this section. The commissioning of automatic signalling on the entire section, a 19.75 crore project, will facilitate smooth running of trains.

SWR Chief Public Relations Officer, E Vijaya, said the commissioning of the automatic signalling along a part of Bangalore Cantonment-Whitefield section has reduced the waiting time for trains on the route.

“The headway (distance between two trains) will be effectively reduced to 1 km. At present, a train on this stretch gets green signal only after the train ahead passes a station. The completion of the work on the entire 19-km section will increase the capacity of the track by 50%,” she said.

Automatic signalling work, together with the commissioning of the three platforms at Baiyappanahalli terminal in the coming months, will pave the way for the introduction of more trains.