The South Western Railway (SWR) is planning to set up theme-based air-conditioned rail coach restaurants in two places in Karnataka’s Capital city. Two railway stations in Bengaluru will soon get rail-coach restaurants with state-of-the-art facilities.
A senior SWR official on Wednesday (July 26) informed that the passengers visiting the KSR Bengaluru City Railway Station and the newly inaugurated Sir M Visvesvarya Terminal Bengaluru Station (SMVB) will be able to avail this new facility.
“The rail coach restaurant will be using a railway coach, which will be modified to suit the tastes of connoisseurs of food. The theme-based rail coach restaurants will begin serving customers by October,” he said.
According to railway officials, at the moment only two such restaurants have been planned, however, after the re-development of Yesvantpur and Bengaluru Cantonment is concluded, there is a possibility of establishing similar restaurants there.
All you need to know about Bengaluru’s rail coach restaurants
- The rail coach restaurants will be situated near the main gate of the railway stations. These restaurants are expected to be operational by October end this year.
- The main idea behind such restaurants is to give passengers a new and different dining experience.
- The officials informed that the landscapes of the two specified railway stations of the Bengaluru division are set to undergo a major upgrade with two novel rail-coach restaurants to be set-up.
- The SWR plans to design the restaurant to satiate the taste buds of vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian passangers.
- It may be noted that there will be separate kitchens for preparing vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies.
- These air-conditioned rail coach restaurants with state-of-the-art facilities will cater to the public 24×7.
- The rail coach restaurants will serve both north and south Indian delicacies with a seating capacity of 50 inside the coach and few more outside the coach.
- Breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner facility will be available at these restaurants.
Bengaluru’s rail coach restaurants to serve wide range of food
Dining options at railway stations are limited and away from the routine dining experience, these kinds of restaurants will give passengers an option to experience in-coach dining with freshly cooked food since most stations only have pre-cooked food, Kusuma Hariprasad, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, South Western Railway (Bengaluru Division) told PTI.
These restaurants will aim to provide a wide range of food and bridge the gap between the food that’s available outside the railway station and that which is available within the station premises, she said.
“These rail coach restaurants are a new non-fare revenue initiative by the Railways wherein old and to-be scrapped Railway coaches are modified and refurbished to convert them into restaurants with adequate seating facilities to give passengers a new dining experience,” she said.
Contracts for these rail-coach restaurants were awarded under the e-auction module of the Railway Board in June this year and witnessed fierce competition amongst bidders, officials said.
“The contract for the rail coach restaurant at KSR Bengaluru City Railway Station was awarded to Oam Industries Pvt Ltd while the contract at Sir M Visvesvarya Terminal Bengaluru Station (SMVB) was awarded to Gaurav Enterprises. The contract is for five years and will fetch the railways a total revenue of Rs 7.54 Crore in licence fees,” the senior official said.
“The designing of restaurants will be carried out by private players who have been awarded the contract through an open e-auction. Only the coach and land will be provided by the Railways for the contract period. Development of the coach and operating the restaurant will be done by the Licensees,” she said.
The engineering department of the Railways will soon start work of laying rail tracks at the locations, after which the licensees will shift the coaches, which are available and ready to be moved, to the tracks at the location, the officials said.
They will then take 60 days to modify and furnish the coaches, they said. The names will be decided by the licensee after designing.
The South Western Railway has already set up a rail coach restaurant named Boogie- Boogie at Sri Siddharoodha Swami Railway Station in Hubballi, officials said.
(With inputs from PTI)