Now, it’s only a 25-minute ride from Baiyappanahalli to Whitefield.
After a long wait, the suburban train service between Baiyappanahalli and Whitefield was finally inaugurated on Friday by Union Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhu through video conference from New Delhi.
The train service is expected to decongest the slow-moving traffic in the IT corridor.
Bengaluru’s 17th suburban train service in the last one year is expected to reduce the bottlenecks on Old Madras Road, which leads all the way up to the IT zones in Mahadevapura and Whitefield.
Bengaluru techies have been demanding a suburban train service and the Chuku Buku Beku campaign has finally been fruitful.
The demand was made as techies claimed it took them over two hours to reach Whitefield during peak hour traffic.
The Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) train will leave Baiyappanahalli at 8.25 am and reach Whitefield at 8.50 am.
The train stops at KR Puram and Hoodi and covers a distance of 15km in less than half an hour. The train will leave Whitefield at 6.15 pm while returning. It has eight coaches and can carry 2,412 passengers at a time.
With this new train, the suburban line now has 15 trains for local commuters. However, the DEMU is the second such exclusive short-distance train.
There are five trains that run from Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna Station in Majestic to Whitefield between 7 am and 10 am while six trains depart between 4 pm and 7 pm from Whitefield towards Bengaluru City.
“We need two or three more such services to ease the traffic and get people to start using the suburban train,” said Bengaluru Central MP PC Mohan.
In total, there are 95 commuter services in Bengaluru, which connect various railway stations to Ramanagara, Chikkaballapura and Tumakuru.
The train service will operate on Saturdays apart from the weekdays. However, there will be no train service on Sundays.