Jammu Tawi-Hatia Express to be extended till Rourkela from November 12
Railway Budget 2011, Rourkela - Biramitrapur, Rourkela- Kansbahal, Sundergarh, Time table and websites November 9th. 2011, 2:27pmUpdate: The updated train timings of this extended train is as follows. It is slower than expected and takes 4 hours between Rourkela and Hatia. But those extra stops, many in Jharkhand, makes it easy for the Jharkhand people to accept this extension. That may be the reason it has these many stops in between.
(Thanks to rourkelacity.com for the pointer to this topic.)
Following is from a report in Telegraph.
… the Jammu Tawi-Hatia Express will be extended till Rourkela from November 12. Hitherto, Rourkela could enjoy the services of only Hatia-Puri Tapaswini Express, Hatia-Bhubaneswar Garib Rath Express and Hatia-Jharsuguda Passenger.
The above report is from the Jharkhand edition of Telegraph. It is nice to hear that they are taking this news positively, unlike many places which complain when a train originating/terminating from their city is extended.
Although this is a slow train with many stops, this will be the first direct connection between a city in Odisha and Jammu Tawi. The major en-route stops of this train are: Muri, Allahabad, Kanpur, Tundla, Aligarh, Delhi, Sonipat, Panipat, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Pathankot Jn. From Ranchi it currently takes 30:25 hrs to Delhi. It takes about 2:30-3 hrs from Rourkela to Ranchi. So from Rourkela it will take about 33 hrs to Delhi. In comparison Utkal Express plus the 08177 Tata-JSG special takes 26:25 + 2:20 = 28:45hrs. So although it is not that good an alternative to travel to Delhi, it provides new connectivity between Rourkela to many other cities such as: Allahabad, Kanpur, Tundla, Aligarh, Sonipat, Panipat, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Pathankot Jn and Jammu Tawi.
This extension is the result of the efforts of the people of Rourkela. Their movement to provide better connectivity and facilities at Rourkela should be energized by this initial result.
From an initial look, Rourkela has good connectivity to places in the west (Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, etc.) and Kolkata.
With the above mentioned train the connectivity to Delhi will be decent and as mentioned their will be new connectivity to many new cities in the North. (Earlier there was only a biweekly train to/from Varanasi.)
In terms of connectivity to Southern cities the main trains are: the daily Allepey train with stoppages at Vizianagaram, Vizag, Vijaywada, Chennai, Coimbatore, Palghat, and Kochi (Ernakulum); thrice a week to/from Bangalore via Vijaywada and Tirupati; and weekly to Hyderabad. So the connectivity to Bangalore and Hyderabad needs to be improved urgently. Connectivity to/from Hyderabad could be easily improved by extending the biweekly Sambalpur-Nizamabad express to Rourkela. (One needs to check the current rake-sharing arrangements for it.)
The site http://rourkelarail.wetpaint.com/page/DEMANDS lists a bunch of demands from some railfans from Rourkela. It would help if they make a prioritized list of their demands for trains (new, extensions, frequency increases): Top, Top 3, Top 5. Note that diversions and rerouting of trains is extremely rare as the people in the current routes (who will lose that train) will oppose it. So such demands undermine the effort.
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November 20th, 2011 at 2:03 am
I found it. In page 13 of 2009-10 year book at http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directorate/stat_econ/Stat_0910/Year%20Book%202009-10-Sml_size_English.pdf it is given that the SER route kms is 2631. With 589 kms of them in Odisha (which is 22.39% of the total SER route kms) we can make a strong case that one of its division should be in Odisha; and Rourkela is good candidate for the HQ of that division.
I agree that the number is more than 589 km for Odisha as my 589 km calculation was based on 2006-2007 data at http://www.kbkrail.orissalinks.com/documents/Document%202006-07%20track-bridges%20in%20page%202.pdf .
I think that it is rare that a state has more than 20% of route kms of any railway zone and does not have a division to protect the interest of that state. Can one of you please check. If you look at the three divisions mentioned in http://kbkrail.orissalinks.com/ that is indeed the case.
Dillip, Sudesh: Can you guys go over each of the 16 zones and check which zones do not have a division HQ in a state covered by that zone and what percentage of the total route km of that zone does lies in that state. For example, based on http://kbkrail.orissalinks.com/ :
1. ECOR covers Odisha, Andhra and Chhatisgarh. It does not have a div HQ in Chhatisgarh. But out of the total 2430 route km (old data) only 268.21 kms lie in Chhatisgrah which is only 11.03%
2. SECR covers Odisha, Chhatisgarh, MP and Maharashtra. It does not have div HQ in Odisha and MP. But out of 1599.35 route km (old data) only 51.1 km lie in Odisha and 263.6 km in MP (16.48%).
Both of the above use old data. Some new numbers are at http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directorate/stat_econ/Stat_0910/Year%20Book%202009-10-Sml_size_English.pdf and more deatiled numbers can be found in the pages of each zone and their divisions.
If my hunch is correct that every (or almost every) state that has 20% of the route km of a zone has a div hq of that zone in that state then we have a very very strong case to demand for a div HQ of SER in Odisha.
November 20th, 2011 at 3:22 am
Dear Rourkela guys: Please quickly help me make the case as outlined in http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/archives/5406 . Please use the comments section.
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:53 pm
If you go through the past rail budgets Rourkela gets atleast one new connection either to western india or Howrah.Well appreciae railway efforts but how about the less or no connectivity to other parts.Once upon a time we just had one train to south india(Allepy exp) and one to north india(Utkal express.Even the Hirakud used to run from Rourkela but somehow it was completly taken off from Rourkela and now runs to VSKP to Amritsar).So my question why we allowed 2 number of trains completly taken off the route.I have mentioned earlier and mmentioning now as well.I hardly know any station or train which was taken off from its original route or destination.Now coming to connectivity even today technically we just have one connection to Delhi from Rourkela.Utkal is not touching RKL and i am afraid it dont face the same fate as Hirakud and Rourkela Shatabdi.I dont know why no one from state govt never raised this.We dont have a genuine connection to north east and Kalka.So lets make a list where we need trains for a new connectivity.Even the new HYD train is not enough for us.We have to extend teh SBP-HYD exp to Rourkela.And yes a new train or an extension of Garib rath to Rourkela along with extension of SBP-Banaras to Delhi.
November 26th, 2011 at 10:49 am
http://greater-rourkela.blogspot.com/2011/11/improving-railway-connectivity-from.html
How about this?
Thanks to Jitu for the pointers
November 26th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Dear ranjan,
according to my knowledge, i think u r speaking about Hirakhand express. its not hirakud express. when talcher-sbp line was not constructed Hirakhand exp was running from rkl-bbsr via sbp,titlagarh, rayagada, vizayanagaram and berhampur. after sbp-talcher line became functional tapaswini express from rkl-bbsr started via sbp,talcher and as previous route was too long from rkl-bbsr, hirakhand exp was taken of from rkl and starts from rayagada. later it extended up to koraput and now jagdalpur.
About hirakud exp, it was running from sambalpur to nizamuddin. later it extended upto bbsr and now vskp.
November 28th, 2011 at 10:45 am
Dear Jitu,
Hirakhand express and Hirakud ( u call it hirakund in delhi) are two diffrent trains.Hirakhand was a daily express from RKL-BBSR and Hirakund or Hirakud was from RKL-Nizzamuddin.Both the trains were takes off from RKL and no body made any issues of it.Today both these trains are well connected with BBSR(Hirakhand with Koraput-BBSR and Hirakud extended till Vizag from BBSR and Delhi from Amritsar).Now my concern why no one from our so called united Orissa never raised a question ?
November 28th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Dear Ranjan,
when i got my sense from that time i am seeing hirakud is running from sambalpur. before that i dont know.. it may be from rkl. and its true that no one is raising question for the extension of trains to bbsr. even raipur- sambalpur intercity was extended to bbsr. thats ok. still its passed through sambalpur and its add new connectivity to the people of bbsr,cuttack,denkhanal,anugul,talcher to raipur. but the worst is the change in timing. earlier it was leaving sambalpur at around 22:30 but after the extension its reaches sbp at 1:05 and leaves sbp at 1:15. a very worst time for people of sambalpur. as it was earlier running from sambalpur, the timing should be convenient for the sambalpur people. returning time also same problem. still no one raised any question.
November 28th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Well Jitu..I guess you are not clear about my statements.My concern is how many trains Sambalpur or BBSr or any xyz place of India got the treatment like Rourkela.The complete train was taken off the route or cancelled for ever.You mentioned Hirakund running from SBP.In the past it was running as a link from RKL/SBP to Delhi via JSG.Then one fine day w beacuse of some dirty politics and low political milage at Rourkela the train was completely taken off from Rourkela.Same happened with Rourkela Shatabdi and the RKL-BBSR Hirakhand Express.Now i dont mind extending any train to any destination as it will just help the people the most.But where in a law book its mentioned that you need to cancel or take the complete train off its original path just to benifit the people.And as you said regarding the SBP-Raipur express it will be never taken into considertion until n unless BBSR is affected.Thats how teh imporatance graph is printed.Most of our Delhi bound trains are running via Jharkhand and least benifiting the people of Orissa.Why cant we take BBSR Rajdhani off the route from Tata or Adra and run it via SBP-RKL-HATIA-Kanpur route on alternate days.See how much fight we have to put to extend the Banaras-SBP and Jammu-RKL(now).In future we got to have strong voice to pitch in.Make sure the people of Orissa are benifitted most.Once a co-passenger while travelling on BBSR Rajdhani said..that BBSR Rajdhani is running on most days just because of Tatanagar.I just thought to ignore this guy as he had no idea what he was saying.May be the railway are idiots according to him.
November 28th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Hirakud Express was initially proposed between Sambalpur and Nizamuddin. However a link train was provided between Rourkela and Jharsuguda,which was withdrawn later on.
November 30th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Removal of shatabdi and rkl/sbp- Nizamuddin is very unfortunate. shatabdi was the state pride. i remembered in my childhood once in a quiz competition the asked “the only shatabdi train of orissa runs from where to where?” how ever removal of hirakhand can make sense. as the train have to cover more than double distance of rkl-sbp-tlhr-bbs route. but still as they removed hirakhand,that time they have to provide one train on that route.(ie: rkl-vskp exp).
December 7th, 2011 at 10:29 am
The frequency of Hatia-Yesvantpur Express should be increased to 4 days a week. OR An exclusive train between Rourkela and Bangalore City/Yesvantpur,running 2 days a week shuld be planned
July 18th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
Once the link between Ranchi-Tori link via lohardaga will finished. then the journey of Ranchi-NewDelhi Garib Rath & Rajdhani Exp will reduce by 3 hours which will compenstated by extending the link to Rourkela.