Sources claim station was plagued by waterlogging and other problems ever since a recent remodelling project
Mahim has turned out to be Western Railway’s Achilles Heel.
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Despite the downpour on Friday, WR cancelled only 10 services — all 10 because of Mahim. Officials are now blaming this on allegedly shoddy work during the station remodelling project in February-March.
Among other issues, Mahim station witnesses a lot of accidents due to people trespassing on the tracks as there aren’t enough foot over bridges. Pic/Suresh Karkera
After the waterlogged tracks at Mahim held up operations on Friday, WR called a 4-hour mega block between Mahim and Mumbai Central on the intervening night between Saturday and Sunday, to try and fix the problem. Sources from WR said that ever since the remodelling project, Mahim station has been plagued by some problem or the other.
The remodelling was carried out by the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), and included making stabling arrangements for 15-car trains, extending platforms for 12-car trains and improving the alignment of tracks. However, WR officials claimed that in the process of aligning the tracks, the rails had become uneven at locations near the Harbour line, leading to waterlogging.
To fix this problem, work was undertaken on July 30 to raise the tracks and prepare a cross drain to divert water away from the problematic south-end.
An open drain is also currently being created on the north end. However, none of this has worked so far. Now, officials are planning to raise the tracks further.
“The tracks were raised by three inches, but there is more scope to raise them further, which will be done later,” said Ravindra Bhakar, chief PRO, Western Railway.
Apart from the waterlogging, there were also issues of signal failure and point failure at Mahim, which didn’t allow trains to shift across lines. Mahim station is also known for garbage dumping near the tracks, along with illegal encroachments along the tracks. Commuters also complain that there is only one Foot Overbridge (FOB) on the north end of the station, due to which many trespass on the tracks.
However, Prabhat Ranjan, chief PRO for MRVC said they cannot be blamed for the problems. “We cannot be blamed now; the work at Mahim was completed long back,” he said.
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