South Western Railway (SWR) is set to run four trains with electric engines from January 28-29.
The Hassan-Solapur-Hassan Daily Express (11312/11311) will run with an electric locomotive on the Solapur-Yesvantpur-Solapur section from January 28 for the train starting from Hassan and from January 29 for the train starting from Solapur.
The Basava Express (17307/17308) will run with an electric locomotive on the Mysuru-Solapur-Mysuru section from January 28 for the journey commencing from Mysuru, and from January 29 for the journey commencing from Bagalkot.
The Hassan-Solapur-Hassan Express will run with electric engines on 78% of its route i.e., 652 kilometre (Yesvantpur -Dharmavaram-Guntakal-Raichur-Wadi-Kalaburagi-Solapur) out of the 826-km journey. Basava Express will run with electric engines on 76% of its route. This is expected to save more than 10,000 litres of diesel every day.
Sanjeev Kishore, General Manager, SWR, said that 22 trains have been converted to run with electric engines in the current financial year (2021-22), and four more are in the pipeline.
Journey to electrification
In financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21, 48 trains - 24 trains in each year - were converted from diesel locomotive to electric locomotive.
SWR is actively working to switch at least 10 more trains to electric engines in the next two months, with specific focus on sections where electrification has been completed.
In the current financial year, 232 route kilometres of track electrification has been completed so far and South Western Railway has set a target to complete electrification of another 200 route kilometres in the next two months.
The electrified section under SWR has increased from about 200 route kilometres in 2016 to 1,452 route kilometres, accounting for 40% of the SWR network.
