The Mangaluru Vande Bharat service connecting Bengaluru, coastal Karnataka and Madgaon was flagged off at Mangaluru Junction on Friday by Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, opening a faster rail link across Karnataka’s western coast and southern Goa.
The train will operate from Yeshwanthpur and cover a route of about 850 km to Madgaon, with stops including Hassan, Sakleshpur, Subrahmanya Road, Mangaluru, Udupi, Kundapura, Mookambika Road Byndoor, Murdeshwar, Gokarna Road and Karwar. The service is expected to improve connections between Bengaluru, the coastal districts of Karnataka and Goa, according to a railway department release cited in the report.
At the launch event, Vaishnaw said the service had been made possible despite several challenges. He also announced that ₹94 crore had been sanctioned to develop Mangaluru Central station as a model station.
The minister travelled on the new train from Mangaluru to Subrahmanya Road along with MPs Captain Brijesh Chota and Kota Srinivasa Poojary, among other public representatives. The launch was accompanied by the resumption of the Mangaluru–Subrahmanya Road passenger train and the inauguration of railway infrastructure works in the region.
Captain Brijesh Chota said the railway network serving Mangaluru had been divided operationally among Konkan Railway, Southern Railway and South Western Railway. He said the demand to bring these arrangements under a single division had been difficult to implement, but that Mangaluru had now emerged as a priority area for the railways.
The Subrahmanya Road–Sakleshpur railway line has also been electrified under a project costing approximately ₹100 crore, according to Chota’s remarks at the event. Subrahmanya Road station has been renovated under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme at a reported cost of ₹25 crore, and the station works were also inaugurated.
The new service is positioned as a direct rail connection between Bengaluru, the Western Ghats, coastal Karnataka and Goa. Its scheduled stops include major urban centres as well as tourism-linked destinations, including Mangaluru, Udupi, Murdeshwar, Gokarna Road, Karwar and Madgaon. The railway department said the improved connectivity could support tourism to coastal Karnataka and southern Goa.
The launch also brought a pending local mobility issue back into focus. Mangaluru MLA Vedavyas Kamath said the Union Railway Minister had assured that a special team would be sent from Delhi to examine the problem at the Pandeshwar railway crossing. No timeline for that intervention was provided in the report.
The event was attended by MPs, legislators, a member of the Legislative Council and Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Darshan H.V. The ₹94 crore Mangaluru Central redevelopment, the electrification of the Subrahmanya Road–Sakleshpur section and the proposed review of the Pandeshwar crossing are the next reported railway-related steps for the region.
