As of December 1st, 2023 around 80% of the Railway line under the Hubballi headquartered South Western Railway (SWR) has been Fully electrified by the Indian Railways. Details are as follows.
But among 18 railway zones in India (including Metro network, Kolkata), South Western Railway (SWR) stands at 17th position which is a matter to be worried about.
South Western Railway has a total of 3,606 RKm of Broad gauge railway line in its jurisdiction. Among these 2,899 Rkm of railway line (around 80%) has been electrified as of December 1st, 2023.
As many as 10 railway zones in India have been fully electrified (100% electrified). The fully electrified railway zones and the corresponding jurisdiction in Rkm (Railway Km) are as follows.
North Central Railway (3,257 RKm), East Continental Railway (2,954 RKm), North Eastern Railway (3,195 RKm), West Central Railway (3,067 RKm), Central Railway (3,888 RKm).
Eastern Railway (2,775 RKm), Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (738 RKm), Kolkata Metro (43 RKm), South East Central Railway (2,348 RKm) and South Eastern Railway (2,753 RKm).
Some of the major railway lines electrified under SWR are as follows: Bengaluru to Belagavi via Hubballi Dharwad, and Bellary to Madgaon via Hubballi (except Castlerock to Kulem).
Bengaluru to Mysuru further towards Chamarajanagara, Bengaluru to Shivamogga, Chikkajajur to Bellary via Chitradurga & Rayadurga, Bengaluru to Dharmavaram via Hindupur.
Indian Railway has a broad gauge railway network of 65,532 RKm. Among these, around 60,814 RKm (92.8%) of the railway line is fully electrified. 17 zones have reported more than 80% electrification.
Indian Railway plans to become a ‘Net Zero Carbon Emitter’ by 2030 through 100% electrification of the railway network, making it one of the largest green railways in the world.
Electrification will significantly improve the mobility of trains in SWR limits and strengthen the Rail network in Karnataka, in addition to the reduction in pollution levels.
It is observed that most of the trains, especially goods trains on SWR ply with diesel locomotives on the electrified track. So what’s the use of electrification? Isn’t it a waste of public money?
One must understand that the figures given are only for statistics and for the general public to be misled…wait for a couple of years there’s going to be 100% electrification but then there’ll not be locomotives to utilise these infrastructure…that my dear countrymen is how the government works…when you have the horse you are denied the cart…now what do you put first? The horse or the cart?…quite a comedy of errors here…
When a freight rake travels on diesel loco from the orgin where there is no electrification, on the further track there is electrification, every time loco cannot be changed. It is waste of time and resources. Eg A freight train originating from castle rock has to run on diesel loco till Bellary and vice-versa, although there is electrification from kulem.
The previous KhanCross government had no vision and had not put any efforts to scale down production of diesel locomotives. In fact, they had entered into a MoU with GE for supply of 1000 EMDs, which was a long term contract. The current government had no option but to honour that contract.
However, in 2017, by when Bharat was beginning to be a strong power, they could prevail upon GE to convert them to electrics. 500 of them had come by then.
Also, there was no vision in the KhanCross government to step up the production of electric locomotives.
Only after 2019, has this been galvanized with the declaration of “100% electrification of rail lines” policy.
Now CLW and DLW are churning out quite a bit of electric locos but they are not sufficient to keep pace with the requirements as many ALCO locos have been phased out due to ageing.
This situation would remain for the next 2/3 years until we get enough electric locos.
There is a risk involved too. Supposing the electric grid fails, we wouldnt have enough diesels on site to haul them through. So they might still retain a few EMDs as a back up
There is specific technical reason reason ((kind of locomotives to be hauled ). Understand before commenting
SWR is the lethargic compared to all other railway divisions
It’s very sad eating general public time by late running trains especially Golgumbaz train every day running 1-2 hours late which always full and having most demand even double line between VIJAYAPUR to gadag is going like blind people with one hand and one leg were working and by this progress railway department Displaying their flag success really great
Please run the trains right time. After converting to double line, than also running late, what use of double line.
And also reduce the time duration after increase the speed of trains.
For almost all trains lot of running time is allowed. For example train number 17318 takes 55 minutes to reach Hubballi from Dharwad – just 18 kms! In fact after gauge conversion and electrification trains should take less time to reach their destinations.
Sir, SWR is giving false information and cheating public. Only 50% of electricstion have completed. The person who is issuing press statement has not collected data physically. Full of false information. SWR is cheating the people of bangalore and Mysore. The person who has released let me come in public, we will challenge. He will get defeated
trains 20664, 16536 average late running is 1 2 hours. Double line electrified and yet late. These trains halt at soldevanhalli or just before YPR and dont get platform…
20654 train BGM to SBC super fast train