First train from Visvesvaraya Terminal chugs off to Kerala

BENGALURU: Loud chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ rent the air accompanied by whistles and claps on Platform One of the brand new Sir M Visvesvaraya Bengaluru (SMVB) terminal as the SMVB-Ernakulam Tri-weekly Express departed at 7.51 pm.

However, it turned out to be a nightmare for over 50 passengers as they reached Banaswadi railway station, which had been the starting point for the train so far. Railway officials swung into action and brought the passengers by a MEMU train and a BMTC bus to enable them to board the train at SMVB terminal.

The originating and terminating points of two pairs of trains — Bengaluru-Kerala and Bengaluru-Patna — have been shifted from Banaswadi railway station to the newly-built Rs 314-crore swanky terminal from June 6. The Bengaluru Railway Division said all the reserved ticket passengers were alerted about the change of venue through SMSes and emails. 

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Division, A N Krishna Reddy said, “We anticipated that some people would go to Banaswadi as this is the first day following the shifting of the terminal and so we had kept BMTC buses there on standby”

Among those on board were Pramod Pillai, a retired employee from HAL. He told TNIE, “The platform and the station look fantastic. But look at the state of the train. It is so dirty.”  Retired Army man N D Antappan said “This station has everything. We got a cup of coffee for just Rs 10 and it was so good that we I had two cups.” Athira, an artiste said, “The station looks very neat. We came to see off someone and I initially thought we had landed at an airport”.