What lies beneath Mumbai? Railways knows better than BMC!

The Central Railway seems to have partially achieved what the city's civic body has failed to do so far, despite discussions and plans. The Central Railway on Saturday announced it has mapped all its underground cable utilities and wires, which will help them during excavation and monsoon. The mapping of all of CR's routes of over 4,000 km took eight months.

Various types of cables are being laid underground along the railway track for working of Signal and Telecom equipment at stations, automatic sections and other railway installations. With modern signal and telecom technologies being adopted, the number and types of cables required to be laid has increased considerably. At the same time, cables are required to be laid all along the track continuously," Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

The map is available to everyone an official said

"With the increased volume of excavation activities for construction of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of railway lines, gauge conversation, etc. frequent incidents of cable damage occur. Cutting of S&T cables has an adverse effect on train movement as the signal and communication equipment fail. To restore these faults, a lot of time, manpower is wasted. Punctuality of trains and line capacity of a section is also adversely affected," he said.

"The Integrated Cable Route Plan combines cables of various installations passing underground through a geographical area shown in different colours and marked throughout, following kilometres of railway tracks. The plan is available for access to all, before starting excavation near railway tracks. This is a major step towards safe running of trains," he added.

General Manager Anil Kumar Lahoti who inaugurated the Integrated Cable Route Plan at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus said, "The Integrated Cable Route Plan, developed inhouse by the Signal and Telecommunication (S&T) department of Central Railway, will eliminate chances of cable damage due to excavation, thus minimising train detentions, revenue loss and enhance line capacity and train movement. It is also a positive step towards better signalling, communications and safe running of trains."