Bijapur-Yeshwantpur train to resume services from April 10
Train will not have general tickets, seats should be reserved online/offline
Bijapur: Several trains which were suspended owing to lockdown and lack of passengers, are now gradually coming back on track with Indian Railways resuming their services.
South Western Railway (SWR) has now decided to operate another special express train connecting between Bijapur and Bengaluru.
After the lockdown, only fifteen out of twenty-six scheduled trains have been resumed their operations. Among the nine are daily trains, four are weekly and two are biweekly trains. To this list of operating trains, another daily special express train Bijapur -Yeshwantpur (06542/41) will be added from April 11. However, this special express train will start its operations on April 10 from Yeshwantpur.
This train will run from Bijapur via Hosapete and Chikajajur junction to reach Yeshwantpur. The train will depart Bijapur at 7 pm and reach the destination Yeshwantpur at 10:20 am and the same train departs Yeshwantpur at 9:30 pm and reaches Bijapur at 11:40 pm. This train will have one AC-3 tier coach, three sleeper coaches, four-second class coaches, one disabled friendly compartment, and two luggage-cum breakeven coaches.
Railway officials said that the online booking for the special daily express has already started. All the berths will be reserved, that is, the passengers have to either book the tickets online or at the reservation counters in railway stations. The general tickets will not be issued as the train is being operated with limited seats adhering to the Covid-19 norms.
At present two daily special express trains are being operated to Bengaluru via Bijapur, one is Gol Gumbaz Express and another is Basava Express. With the introduction of this new express train (06542/41) the tally will increase to three trains.
It may be noted that the same express train was first introduced in November 2019, where late union minister Suresh Angadi had flagged off. It had failed to receive the expected response from the public because of unfriendly timings. This train was operated in the loss until the train services were discontinued owing to the outbreak of novel coronavirus. After the post-lockdown, the netizens demanded the SWR to continue the special express train. Now, after over a year the railway authorities have decided to resume the Bijapur-Yeshwantpur special express train from the third week of this month.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
