15 Mumbai-Pune trains not expected to get back on track soon

Representational Picture

The Central Railway (CR) has made it clear, very loudly, too, that they will not get the 15 Mumbai-Pune trains back on track soon even though it might mean inconveniencing lakhs of commuters. But, what bothers commuters more is why the CR chooses to operate this way even after spending crores of rupees on developing the section.

To make it seem like the situation isn't that bad, CR plans to add two halts on the Deccan Queen route at Dadar and Thane in the Pune direction and at Karjat and Thane in the CSMT direction from July 26 to August 9. Also, four trains have been provided with additional coaches for the same period. The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation, too, has arranged for 180 additional buses on the Mumbai-Thane-Pune route and 24 Shivneri buses to counter the problem.

A CR official said, "The Mumbai division has already removed more than 700 boulders from vulnerable spots and has also set up a special type of Canadian fence within a radius of 650 metres of these spots to prevent boulders from falling on the tracks." He said in addition to this, tunnel portal extension was done at four places and rock bolting for 750 square metres of boulders.

"We realised that more incidents of boulders falling on tracks have been happening as the ghat sections received almost 1,900 mm of rainfall in the past 15 days. Several measures are being taken to ensure untoward incidents don't happen," he added.

He further said, "A catchwater drain will also be set up along the vulnerable locations. Besides this, watchmen have been deputed at 19 such spots. They have been given walkie-talkies so that they can directly inform the control room in case of any untoward incident. Apart from this, 60 additional CCTV cameras have been set up and 24/7 patrolling is being done to ensure safety."

Has the situation worsened?

Central Railway has been dealing with this problem of boulders falling on tracks since Day 1 but they never cancelled so many trains to manage the situation.

According to a notice issued by CR on the initiation of passenger rail service on the ghat section in 1864, the entire stretch was divided into 13 sections with three watchmen deputed for each. Apart from this, one person would patrol the area on foot. Even though the same problems were faced during monsoon, they only limited the movement of trains at night owing to limited technology.

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