Trains from Bengaluru to Mumbai, Rajasthan, Gujarat to get faster | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: South Western Railway (SWR) will speed up 123 trains from Jan 2026, according to its public timetable released Thursday. With this change, schedules for 414 trains will be revised.The decision will bring relief to long-distance commuters travelling to Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Mumbai. Eleven express trains will be converted to the superfast category. With this, the travel time of KSR Bengaluru-Gandhidham Express, which connects Karnataka with Gujarat, will be reduced by three hours — from 38 to 35 hours. The KSR Bengaluru-Jodhpur Express will now complete its journey 1.5 hours faster, in 38 hours and 25 minutes, while the Hubballi-Dadar Express will reach Mumbai an hour earlier, in 14 hours and 15 minutes. SWR officials said adjusting the “slack time” for long-distance trains has helped speed them up. “The speeding up is based on the availability of built-in buffer time in a train’s schedule to absorb operational delays. This extra time is called a train’s ‘slack time’. The speeding procedure occurs every year and we publish similar timetables. Last year, we were able to speed up nearly 100 trains,” a senior SWR official told TOI. As over 100 trains will move faster from 2026, schedules of about 300 trains will have to be revised, and some trains will be slowed down. One such revision, which has sparked significant criticism, is Train No. 20687 running between Hubballi and Bengaluru. The train, which leaves Hubballi at 11.15pm, will now depart an hour later at 12.15am. Commuters posted criticism of this decision on social media platforms alleging inconvenience. “Who approved the midnight TT change for 20687 Hubballi–Bengaluru SF Exp? Was any feedback taken? Rescheduling 20687 SF Exp to 12.15am hurts working professionals, elderly travellers, and families. SWR must answer and reverse this decision immediately,” posted @nagabhushanb, an X user. According to SWR data, 18 new trains were introduced in 2025, including two Vande Bharat trains. Fifty trains got new stoppages and eight trains got Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) coaches.
