Today is the formation day of SWR at UBL. On 1st April 2003 the zone was created with 3 divisions at UBL,MYS and SBC. Today it enters FY 2020-21 with lot of hopes and aspirations in meeting targets in freight,doubling etc. During the last financial year 2019-20 some of the following became a reality.
1. Entire stretch of doubling between HPT-UBL was completed.
2.Dharwad - Londa section doubling completed.
3....
more... Electrification of GTL-BAY-TNGL section completed and also
4.RE between BYPL and Anekal part of Hosur section was electrified
Many trains including SBC-BGM EXP, YPR-BJP VIA DVG,HPT and also BJP-MAQ via UBL was introduced and also Gangavathi-UBL exp was introduced.
Further 2 lines which were not opened to passenger traffic was thrown open to passenger traffic. They are
1 Kottur-Hosapete and
2.Alanvar-Ambewadi
But few demands like Sub-urban rail to Bengaluru,creation of Divn at KLBG and bringing Mangaluru area under SWR still remained a dream.The only consolation is a dedicated train to Coastal Karnataka without touching MAQ was introduced in the first week of March 2020. However it deprived people of Mysuru areas for connectivity to coastal areas.
In the year end due to COVID-19 as construction work came to a halt some of the targets could not be achieved. The year end saw cancellation of passenger trains across the country to combat COVID-19 from 23/3/20 to 14/4/2020.
Hope the year 2020-21 will do good for SWR