The South Western Railway (SWR) on Thursday resumed train services between Bengaluru and Mangaluru via Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road Stations section after clearing debris and boulders from the track on the ghat section.
Services were cancelled/diverted following continuous landslips and flow of slurry on the track at km 86 just after the Siribagilu tunnel on the ghat stretch since July 20 owing to incessant and heavy rain. A few boulders too jetted out on the tracks threatening movement of trains.
SWR’s Mysuru division engaged over 100 workers and five earthmovers to clear the debris since July 20, who worked round the clock to restore the track. Railways removed the boulders through blasting to ensure that they do not obstruct train movement. On Thursday, it operated an empty goods rake through the restored stretch to test the work, following which Yeshwantpur-Mangaluru Junction (16575) tri-weekly Gomateshwara Express was allowed to move.
SWR in a communique here said normal passenger train operations have resumed on the section and all the trains would be operated as usual. The Karwar-Yeshwantpur tri-weekly Express (16516), however, did not run on Thursday as the Yeshwantpur-Karwar tri-weekly Express (16515) did not run on Wednesday.
With this, all passenger trains, Yeshwantpur-Mangaluru Central overnight Express (16585), Bengaluru-Kannur/Karwar overnight Express via Shravanabelagola (16511/16513 and 16517/16523) and Kannur-Karwar-Bengaluru overnight Express (16518/16524 and 16512/16514) would run via Sakleshpur. The Bengaluru-Kannur/Karwar-Bengaluru services were diverted to run via Palakkad, while other tri-weekly trains were cancelled during the period.
The Siribagilu tunnel stretch had posed a major challenge last September too after an entire hillock descended upon the track following heavy rains. It took nearly a fortnight for the Railways to clear the track that was approachable only through the rail-road from Subrahmanya Road Station. As the surface of the hillock was without any vegetation cover, landslips occurred this year too.
