PM Modi to inaugurate Karnataka's 11th Vande Bharat on Aug 10; passenger service to start next day

Bengaluru: Karnataka will get its 11th Vande Bharat Express on August 11, connecting Bengaluru and Belagavi. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the train at KSR Bengaluru station on August 10. Passenger service will begin the next day. 

This will not be an extension of the existing Bengaluru-Dharwad-Bengaluru Vande Bharat.

The railways has instead decided to launch an entirely new service by allotting a dedicated rake for the South Western Railway (SWR), as DH reported in May this year. 

The railways will deploy an eight-coach trainset on this route, according to officials. 

There was a long-pending demand for a premium train service between Bengaluru and Belagavi.

The railways had initially considered extending the KSR Bengaluru-Dharwad-KSR Bengaluru Vande Bharat (20661/20662) to Belagavi and even conducted a trial run on November 21, 2023. 

However, the railways eventually decided to run a new service. 

The new train will leave Belagavi at 5.20 am and reach KSR Bengaluru at 1.50 pm. In the return direction, it will depart from KSR Bengaluru at 2.20 pm and reach Belagavi at 10.40 pm. 

Travel time will be 8.30 hours, just a little over an hour faster than the current fastest train on this route spanning 610.6 km. 

The train will stop at Dharwad, Hubballi, Haveri, Davangere, Tumakuru and Yeshwantpur. It will run six days a week (no service on  Wednesdays). Its primary maintenance will be carried out in Belagavi. The fare will likely be around Rs 1,500 for Chair Car and Rs 2,500 for Executive Class. 

Karnataka currently has 10 Vande Bharat Express trains, including five from Bengaluru (to Dharwad, Kalaburagi, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Madurai), two from Mysuru to Chennai (via Bengaluru), two from Mangaluru (to Madgaon and Thiruvananthapuram), and one from Hubballi to Pune.