South Western Railway has decided to run Train No. 11312/11311 Hassan- Solapur-Hassan Daily Express with electric locomotive between Solapur-Yesvantpur- Solapur with effect from 28th January 2022 for train journey commencing from Hassan and with effect from 29th January 2022 for train journey commencing from Solapur. Earlier, this train was running with Diesel Locomotive from end to end i.e., between Hassan and Solapur.
Similarly, T. No. 17307/17308 Mysuru- Bagalkot- Mysuru Basava Express will run with Electric Locomotive between Mysuru- Solapur- Mysuru with effect from 28th January 2022 for train journey commencing from Mysuru and with effect from 29th January 2022 for train journey commencing from Bagalkot. Earlier this train was running with electric locomotive between Mysuru and Yesvantpur.
In South Western Railway in last two financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21, 48 trains – 24 in each year, have been taken over / extended to run on Electric Engines.
Shri Sanjeev Kishore, General Manager, South Western Railway has told that in the current financial year 2021-22 already 22 trains have been converted to electric traction to run with electric engines so far and now 4 will be implemented from 28th/29th January.
Basava Express will now run 76% of the route, i.e., between Mysuru-KSR Bengaluru-Dharmavaram-Guntakal-Raichur-Wadi-Kalaburagi-Solapur with Electric Engine.
Similarly, Hassan-Solapur-Hassan Express will run 78% of the route with electric engine i.e., 652 kilometre (between Yesvantpur-Dharmavara-Guntakal-Raichur-Wadi –Kalaburagi-Solapur) out of 826 Km of its journey.
Running of these 4 trains with electrical engines for major part of the route is expected to save more than 10,000 litres of Diesel every day.
SWR is actively working to switch minimum 10 more trains to Electric engines in next two months, with specific focus on sections where Electrification has already been completed.
In the current Financial Year from April 2021, 232 RKM of Electrification has been completed so far in South Western Railway and is aiming to complete electrification of another 200+ RKM in next two months. From 200+ RKM in 2016, the electrified track on SWR has now rised to 1452 RKM which is 40% of the total route km of SWR.
