Latest news with #SWR
Time of India
17 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
ATVMs installed in Hubballi division to reduce rush at ticket counters
Hubballi: In a move aimed at reducing crowds at ticket counters, South Western Railway (SWR), Hubballi division, installed 25 automatic ticket vending machines (ATVMs) across various stations in its jurisdiction. Hubballi station has eight machines, followed by Belagavi and Ballari with three each, Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Gadag, and Hosapete with two each, and Dharwad, Koppal, and Ghataprabha stations have one each. Most passengers rely heavily on unreserved tickets. These machines are useful for daily commuters such as workers and students, enabling them to quickly and conveniently obtain tickets without having to wait in long queues. ATVMs facilitate issuance of multiple ticket types, including monthly (season) passes, platform tickets, and unreserved journey tickets. One of the key features is the use of rechargeable smart cards, which can be used as needed for different travel purposes. Passengers can also scan a QR code to purchase tickets. A total of 31 ATVM facilitators are appointed across various stations to assist passengers in using the machines. They either disburse the tickets through the facilitator smart card or guide the passengers to buy tickets. These facilitators are retired railway employees selected through the screening of applications by the committee of officers. To encourage the use of ATVMs, passengers purchasing unreserved tickets through these machines are offered discounts credited to their smart cards—3% for journeys up to 150 km, 2% for distances between 150 and 500 km, and 1% for trips exceeding 500 km. These discounts are also extended to ATVM facilitators (operators). With advanced technical support, the department aims to significantly increase the number of tickets issued through ATVMs. This not only enhances passenger convenience but also reduces the workload on conventional ticket counters.
Time of India
3 days ago
- General
- Time of India
TOI Impact: Facilities at Gadag rly station made operational
Hubballi: Responding to a TOI report titled "PM opens Gadag rly stn, but work pending" published on May 28, South Western Railway (SWR) activated facilities at the station on Wednesday. Manjunath Kanamadi, CPRO, SWR, told TOI that the revamped Gadag Railway Station was formally inaugurated by the Prime Minister on May 22. "The station was fully commissioned with a newly constructed building and is equipped with all essential passenger amenities, including a spacious waiting hall, booking office, food court, two lifts, two escalators and a 12-metre-wide foot over bridge (FOB). The station was developed to be Divyang-friendly, ensuring accessibility for all passengers," he added. He further said, "Both the lifts and escalators are fully operational and are currently in use by the travelling public. All platforms and passenger areas were cleared of construction materials, and there are no safety hazards. Drinking water facilities are available on all platforms. The station underwent a complete transformation and now ranks among the best in terms of passenger amenities. The inauguration was carried out only after the completion of all major works. However, as with any newly commissioned infrastructure, some minor issues may occasionally arise, which will be promptly addressed."
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
PM virtually inaugurates Gadag station, Work Still Incomplete
Gadag: Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated 103 railway stations, developed under the Amrit Bharat Station scheme, to the nation on May 22. Gadag railway station was one of them, developed at a cost of over Rs 23 crore. However, several works are yet to be completed. Escalators and lifts are non-functional due to pending power connections, and many basic amenities remain unfinished. Station employees say political decisions drove the timing of the inauguration, leading to public disappointment. Ganesh Singh Byali of the Betgeri Railway Abhivruddhi Horata Samiti told TOI that this is an instance of how the railway department is dancing to the tune of politicians. "Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the station virtually from Rajasthan, Gadag station was opened while still a lot of work remains pending. Now passengers are forced to risk their lives while walking around the station as many sheets, tiles and their pieces, sand, cement, and other construction material are lying in the open. Pipes are erected but water stands are yet to be constructed. What was the hurry to inaugurate the incomplete station virtually?" he questioned. He opined that SWR officials should have convyed to the railway ministry and PM office, that the work at Gadag station was incomplete. Many employees at the station expressed their helplessness and admitted that the station has turned into a dump yard. "Nowadays only politicians are deciding all happenings in the department," they added. HB Vaddatti, a passenger from Mundargi, said that he visited the station on May 27 to see the renovated station. "As soon as we entered the station, we were disappointed to see senior citizen, children, and other travellers struggle to cross tracks to reach platforms 2 and 3 as all escalators and lifts were defunct. When we contacted the deputy station superintendent he just disconnected the call saying he will look into it," the passenger shared. Parvati Ningappa, a senior citizen at the station, said that she stopped using trains when the renovation began at Gadag station, since she was a patient of chronic knee pain. "As we read the news in media saying the renovated station was inaugurated by the PM, we went there to catch a train from platform 2. As the footbridge is located at the end of the platform, it was a task to reach the other end," she added. Manjunath Kanamadi, CPRO, SWR, was unavailable for comment.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Longer delays, more often, will be the inevitable result of rail nationalisation
What excitement. I travelled into central London today on a state-run train. It was just like old times. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s the government owned and operated virtually everything, not just the railways which were nationalised in 1948. The telephones (BT), our power (CEGB), coal (NCB), steel, shipbuilding, water (various water boards), the buses, even flying (BA). Until 1972 you could go on a state-organised holiday with Thomas Cook. Almost 30 years after the trains were privatised they are being returned to state ownership starting with South Western Railways (SWR). This process is being done in a piecemeal way: when a private operator's franchise expires it is nationalised and will become part of Great British Railways (GBR). SWR happened to be the first in line, not because it is especially bad. Indeed, my own experience is that it has been pretty good other than when the unions went on strike or the already renationalised Network Rail had messed up, which was hardly the fault of FirstGroup which ran the trains until Sunday. Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, took the first People's Train out of Waterloo and declared it to be a 'new dawn' when most of us old enough to remember British Rail see it as a step into the past. Of course nothing had changed. Indeed, the very first renationalised SWR service involved a rail replacement bus: the 05.36 from Woking to Waterloo had to terminate at Surbiton because of Bank Holiday weekend engineering works. The trains bear the same livery and have the same staff. They will eventually be rebranded with a GBR logo though not for a few years. Ms Alexander said there would be a 'cultural reset' for the railway whatever that means. One thing we do know is that the Government will be responsible for ensuring investment in new rolling stock, fare policy and ensuring the trains run on time. The reason BR was privatised was because by the mid-1990s none of these could any longer be guaranteed when the Treasury had competing demands on revenues, not least from a rapidly expanding welfare state. This is even more the case today, so where will the money come from? The politics are problematic as well. Ms Alexander says the re-nationalisation means 'moving away from 30 years of inefficiency, delayed services and failing passengers, and moving confidently into a new really is a watershed moment.' We shall see about that. When the carriages start to look run-down, the fares go up and trains are late because the drivers are on strike for ever bigger pay rises from a Labour Party they have helped to bankroll there will be only one body to blame: the Government. She added: 'Of course, change isn't going to happen overnight. We've always been clear that public ownership isn't a silver bullet.' Indeed, not. In fact it is invariably a dead hand because nationalised industries have none of the market pressures faced by commercial operators. But it must be conceded that the railways – and to an even greater extent the water industry which became a massive rip-off of taxpayers – do raise legitimate questions about the efficacy of privatisation. It is worth remembering how radical this was at the time. In a speech to the Tory Reform Group in 1985, the former prime minister Harold Macmillan, then 91 and with just a year to live, pronounced a characteristically patrician verdict upon the privatisation programme of the Thatcher government. It was, he said, like selling off 'the Georgian silver'. His speech was widely ridiculed: here was an essentially Edwardian figure unfashionably wedded to the notion that the state could run industry and public utilities better than private companies. Yet 40 years on there is a resurgence of Macmillanesque hankering after a sepia-tinted world when the trains were run from Whitehall, electricity was provided by the Soviet-sounding Central Electricity Generating Board and water board chiefs were appointed by civil servants. But it cannot be denied that the sale of the public utilities did not create the benign market conditions – or the mass share ownership – that had been envisaged. Privatising 'public good' industries upon which everyone relies and which are natural monopolies was always fraught with difficulty. Since the scope for competition was limited, regulators were needed to protect the interests of consumers and they have not done their jobs properly. It was also hoped that moving these businesses into private hands would ease the pressure on the taxpayer; yet the subsidy to the railways is greater now than at the time of privatisation. On top of that, the UK state relinquished control of utilities only for foreign government-controlled companies like EDF to move in and take over. But even though privatisation was not as propitious as had been hoped, that is not an argument for their return to state ownership, as the unions propose and many people unhappy with their performance would like to see. This is not an ideological point but a pragmatic one: the old system was inefficient, costly and beset by institutionalised inertia. Since privatisation, there has been investment that would simply not have happened had the utilities remained in state hands – especially after the financial crash of 2008 when the biggest spending cuts were in capital projects. The failure of privatised utilities to perform well does not mean they will do better in state hands. In fact, history suggests otherwise. Nonetheless, the benefits still need to spread beyond the boardrooms of a few multi-national cartels. If privatisation of industry and utilities was the challenge 40 years ago, today it is the desocialisation of public services like health and education, with a move towards a social insurance scheme in the former and vouchers in the latter to provide greater choice. No political party is proposing such a radical approach and are just harking back to a world that has long gone. If the answer to the failings of privatisation is re-nationalisation, then the wrong questions are being asked. After all, Macmillan's error was to imagine that the family had any silver left when, in reality, it had already been pawned several times over. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Signalling failure causes delays
Signalling problems have caused delays around Southampton Central railway station. Trains were having to run at reduced speed on all lines, and the disruption is expected to last until about 14:00 BST. South Western Railway (SWR) services between Romsey and Salisbury, and Salisbury and Chandlers Ford, are currently not running. SWR said it was "very sorry" for any delays, but that the problem had since been fixed and all lines had reopened. There are also delays of up to one hour between Fratton and Portsmouth Harbour due to an earlier train breaking down. Tickets can be used on CrossCountry services between Bournemouth and Basingstoke, and GWR services between Portsmouth and Salisbury, the train operator said. Due to the disruption passengers booking their own taxis between Weymouth and Basingstoke, Southampton and Portsmouth, and Southampton and Salisbury may be able to claim back the costs through the SWR website. Replacement buses are running between Southampton and Salisbury. South Western Railway was re-nationalised by the government on Sunday. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Passengers' first renationalised SWR train ride South Western Railway
