Mumbai: Railways services hit due to 'overhead problems': shuttle services begin to clear rush

People facing hardship to reach their destination as services were held up due to overhead equipment (OHE) of a local between Vithalwadi and Kalyan damaged on Up line, Central Railways started shuttle and special services between Ambernath, Karjat and Khopoli and Kalyan, Dombivli and Thane to clear extra rush from these stations.

Through a tweet, Central Railways said, "Due to OHE problem in BL-10 local between Vithalwadi and Kalyan on Up line, services are held up. Technical team is working on it to restore ASAP. Kindly bear with us. Inconvenience is deeply regretted." The Central Railways reportedly arranged eight special trains from Dombivali and Thane railway stations in Mumbai to clear the rush, after taking cognizance of the heavy downpour in the state. 

Sunil Udasi, Chief Public Relation Officer (CPRO), told ANI, "To ease the travelling of office-goers and college students in the peak hours of travelling, six trains from the mainline and 2 trains from the harbour line on Dombivali and Thane railways stations have been arranged. We are also running special trains apart from Sunday schedule." 

Notably, heavy rains have caused poor visibility and delay in flight operations in past one week, besides affecting normal in the state. 

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Under its 100-day action plan, Indian Railways has also envisaged reducing the travel time on the Delhi-Mumbai. A senior Railway Ministry official told IANS: "In a proposal approved by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, the Railways plans to increase the train speed to 160 kmh on the busy routes of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah in the next four years," adding "By increasing the speeds on these busiest rail routes, the travel time between Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai will be reduced to 12 hours and 10 hours, respectively, as compared to the current 17 hours and 15.5 hours."

The estimated cost to upgrade the speed on the 1,483-km New Delhi-Mumbai route will be Rs 6,806 crore, and the entire project is proposed to be implemented within four years from the date of approval, the official added.