South Western Railway zone
The South Western Railway (SWR) is one of the 18 railway zones in India, headquartered at Hubballi in Karnataka State. SWR was created from carving out the routes from Southern Railways and South Central Railways in 2003. History. The South Western Railway zone came into existence on 1 April 2003 by bifurcating Mysuru and Bengaluru divisions from Southern Railway along with Hubballi division from South Central Railway. It is headquartered at Hubballi and comprises three divisions namely Hubballi, Mysuru, and Bengaluru. The fourth division at Kalaburagi was slated to be the fourth division which was supposed  to be carved out from Hubli, Secunderabad, Guntakal and Solapur divisions. Currently the divisional office at Kalaburagi is on hold due to operational constraints. Jurisdiction. South Western Railway covers most of the railway lines in the state of Karnataka (other than the Konkan Railway), many parts of Goa (that are not under Konkan Railway), small parts of Southern Andhra Pradesh, Western parts of Dharmapuri district, hosur taluk and patchur, somanayakanpatti of Tirupattur district of Tamil Nadu. Development. As of 10 November 2021, Out of of broad gauge route, a total of is electrified in the zone. The section between Bengaluru -Mysuru( is doubled and electrified. The Bengaluru - Hubballi line is being doubled and electrified in patches. While Bengaluru - Tumakuru was doubled and opened to traffic in 2007, progress on other sections has been comparatively slow. The doubling of the Birur - Chikjajur section of the same line was completed in 2015 while the doubling of Tumakuru - Arsikere and Hubballi - Harihara sections are in progress. The doubling of Yelahanka-Penukonda section has been completed till Hindupur, and the remaining section is still in progress. The Ballari-Hubballi line is completely doubled and electrified. Gadag-Hotgi and Londa - Miraj - Pune line doubling is  in progress with electrification. In the 2016 Railway Budget, the electrification of Bangalore-Omalur (via:Hosur, Dharmapuri) was also announced. In February 2017, the Bangalore - Hassan railway line via Shravanabelagola was completed. Modernisation. The Mysuru Division of South Western Railways will be designated as "Digital Division" after fully adopting its current technology harnessing programme. The government of India had asked Railways divisions to cut red tape and reduce paperwork in offices. All the officials will adopt technologies like WhatsApp and Google Drive to share reports and other documents. This will save a lot of papers being used for circulating reports  as done currently. Two web-based helplines have been launched so that digitised information can be shared among different officials. The inspection reports regarding maintenance, passenger amenities, cleanliness, electronics, and communication, etc. will be managed by a new software which is under construction now. These measures will cut down redundant works, reduce number of registers and reports maintained by officials, reduce paper consumption and improve the efficiency and celerity of operations. Project Unigauge. Since 2007, the SWR is entirely Indian gauge. SWR has many WDG4, WAP-7, WAG-9HC and WDP-4 locomotives in use.