Faced with a sharp rise in long-distance trains and travellers, Bengaluru has a massive railway infrastructure problem. The city’s three existing rail terminals are just not enough to meet the mounting demand. But the move to build a fourth terminal at Devanahalli has run into hurdles. A new terminal could now come up right inside the city, at Yeswanthpur or Yelahanka.
It is learnt that the South Western Railways (SWR) has identified an alternate plot within its Rail Wheel Factory (RWF) at Yelahanka for the proposed new terminal. Being closer to the city than Devanahalli, the location could be ideal for all north-bound trains to terminate. But railway officials, while indicating that the terminal will be within the city, declined to elaborate and maintained that it would be premature to comment.
SWR catered to 21 crore (212.06 million) passengers in 2024-25 at three terminals — KSR Bengaluru, Yeswanthpur and SMVT at Baiyappanahalli. But, the available 12 pit lines are simply not enough to handle 140 originating, 139 terminating and 142 pass-through trains every day.
| Photo Credit:
Sudhakara Jain
The congestion problem is real. To cater to the footfall of 212.06 million passengers in 2024-25, SWR had only the three terminals at KSR Bengaluru, Yeswanthpur and SMVT at Baiyappanahalli. The available 12 pit lines are simply not enough to handle 140 originating, 139 terminating and 142 pass-through trains every day. It is projected that the originating train numbers will go up to 210, and this could overwhelm the overstretched infrastructure.
‘Yelahanka is a low-hanging fruit’
A fourth terminal within the city could have many takers.
Urban rail activist and analyst Rajkumar Dugar notes that Yelahanka could be the right location to regulate train movements within the city while providing a terminal for trains coming via Doddaballapur and Devanahalli. “The pending Yelahanka to Devanahalli line doubling project will take a lot of time. So, this is like a low-hanging fruit. The work will also be faster. We request the city MPs to pursue this with the authorities concerned,” he adds.
So, how feasible was the earlier proposal for a new terminal along the Yelahanka – Devanahalli – Chikkaballapur corridor?
In May this year, the Railway Board had approved a Final Location Survey (FLS) for the mega coaching terminal with a sanctioned cost of ₹1.35 crore. But the multiplicity of curving tracks and lack of adequate land could jeopardise the project.
Devanahalli: Curving single track
“The problem at Devanahalli is that there is only a single track from both Yelahanka side and towards Chikkaballapur. And it is not a straight line. They have a lot of curves. This cuts the speed of approaching and departing trains. When building a mega terminal, you should have very good entry and exit in both directions for about 30-40 km,” explains seasoned railway analyst Sanjeev Dyamannavar.
The railways are yet to approve track doubling.
Inevitably, single tracks will restrict train movements reducing the efficacy of a railway terminal.
“Even if you have 10 or 20 platforms, you can push only one train every hour. So in a day, even if you have 10 platforms, you can operate only 10 trains. This is exactly what is happening on the Mysuru to Bengaluru section. KSR Terminal receives trains from both Cantonment and Yeshwanthpur side, but it cannot push trains towards Mysuru because tracks are merged to only two kilometres within the city yard,” he points out.
Besides, there is the question of land. Consider this: The Devanahalli terminal is planned with 12 pit lines, five automatic coach washing lines, 24 stabling lines, heavy repair bays, wheel lathe lines, sick lines, loco bays, and more. On paper, the new facility will be equipped to handle 36 rakes daily. But a big question mark remains on the terminal’s feasibility, and experts are convinced that the location survey will expose the multiple challenges.
For instance, acquiring land for four tracks through Doddajala would mean demolishing an entire village. To make it worse, realty development projects are cropping up fast on both sides of the existing track. This is even more pronounced in and around Devanahalli.
The close proximity to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), the Aerospace Park and related commercial activities have accelerated development. Any plan to seriously build a terminal would imply fast-tracking both land acquisition and following it up quickly with doubling the track from Yeswanthpur right up to Kolar.
Yeswanthpur second terminal
While Devanahalli and now Yelahanka are the options being explored, a second terminal at Yeshwanthpur has been on the agenda since 2019. A proposal to this effect was sent to the Railway Board in October that year. That went into cold storage, but the rationale for the terminal then was the same: Saturated lines.
Moreover, a second terminal was in sync with the proposed quadrupling of the tracks from Yeshwanthpur to Tumakuru. A large tract of land near the parcel office across Tumakuru Road was identified to build a coaching terminal with a minimum of four platforms. Trains from Hubballi, Belagavi, Ballari and other places could arrive in the morning and depart in the evening, leveraging Yeswanthpur’s natural connectivity to Tumakuru without interfering with other lines.
SMVT inadequate
There is another reason for the desperation for a fourth coaching terminal: The failure of the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Terminal (SMVT) at Baiyappanahalli to accommodate more trains from the KSR and Yeshwanthpur terminals. Sanjeev points out that SMVT does not have adequate track length to ensure seamless entry and exit of multiple trains. Typically, trains require 300-400 metres of track for quick arrival and departure, which SMVT lacks, unlike Yeshwanthpur where trains could head to the pit line and return without affecting movement of other trains.
Quadrupling the line heading towards KSR Bengaluru could make way for better track connectivity to SMVT. But even this will not give the terminal the necessary track length to accommodate more trains. To maximise capacity, experts say, the terminal could have utilised the available railway land along the Bengaluru – Chennai track to build 5-6 tracks. Currently, the saturated train traffic between KSR Bengaluru and Whitefield cannot take any more traffic to and from SMVT.
It could take months before the Railway Board zeroes in on a potential location for the fourth terminal. While Devanahalli looks unlikely, the Yelahanka proposal could run into rough weather if environmentalists raise concerns. The land being talked about lies between the Puttenahalli lake and Yelahanka Kere within RWF, and could be classified as a wetland.
But it is still early days.