Thanks to the initiative taken by South Western Railway (SWR), the people of north Andhra, living in Bengaluru, heave a sigh of relief. The SWR officials have promptly responded to their plea and announced a premium superfast special express from Bengaluru to Visakhapatnam to clear the holiday rush.
Telugus living in Bengaluru have apprised the officials of their hardship due to lack of a direct train originating from Visakhapatnam. It was estimated that over 40,000 people from coastal Andhra Pradesh, working in IT companies, as also those employed in other sectors have settled in Bengaluru permanently.
Train No. 02653 Special express will leave Bengaluru City station on January 9 and 16 at 3.40 p.m. and arrive in Visakhapatnam at 9.30 a.m. the following days. In the return direction, train No. 02654 Visakhapatnam-Bengaluru City premium special will leave Visakhapatnam at 4.45 p.m. and reach Bengaluru City at 11 a.m. the next day.
Website openedSWR has opened the website for booking of tickets for this train and within two days 40 per cent of the berths have been booked though no formal announcement is made, according to Telugu software professionals living in Bengaluru.
A total of 438 of the 644 berths in the sleeper class, 140 of the 250 in third AC and 21 of the 88 berths in second AC have already been booked for the January 9 premium special from Bengaluru to Visakhapatnam, which indicate the tremendous success of the special.
Ironically, the East Coast Railway (ECoR) authorities have neither announced the operation of SWR special nor even done the feeding for the return train till Sunday, the Telugu people said and expressed the view that it reflected the attitude of the ECoR officials towards Visakhapatnam and Waltair Division.
They also seek steps to make the train regular with the present timings and place it at the IRTTC meeting, scheduled to be held at Allahabad on January 6, 7 and 8, 2015. A similar premium express train with convenient timings and days of operation should also be introduced from Visakhapatnam to Chennai, they felt.
More specials proposed“Our CPTM has uploaded the premium special today and it can be accessed by passengers on the website from tomorrow. We have also proposed some specials for Sankranti but we are yet to receive approvals for the same,” Divisional Railway Manager Anil Kumar told The Hindu when contacted on Monday.
