10 more W Rly suburban services from March 10

The Western Railway (WR) has planned to introduce 10 additional services between Andheri, Borivli and Virar with effect from March 10. This will bring slight relief to the passengers in the western suburbs of Mumbai.

All rakes will be of 12 cars. In addition, the capacity of 16 services running between Churchgate and Borivli/ Andheri will be augmented to 12 cars from the present 9 cars in April.

"New services will provide a relief to the commuters of the Andheri-Virar sector," said Rajkamal Rao, general manager, WR. He added that the Railway has not got any new rakes but would manage to provide the services only by using its coaches in the warehouses and carsheds.

With 10 new services, the total number of services will go up to 1,017 from the existing 1,007. This, along with the capacity enhancement of the 16 services, will result in an overall capacity upgrade of 10 per cent for the Western Railway.

"With new services and pressure increasing on the Railway, we are also reviewing the present suburban time table. It will take at least 3 months," said Rao.

Now the big question: how much relief will these additional services mean to the passengers? Of the proposed 10, five will be in the 'down' direction and five 'up'. And, the timings seem not to be worked out very well. For instance, there are only two services originating from Virar and Vasai to Andheri and Borivli in the 'up' direction between 8 am and 10 am. And the rest three are after 9:30 pm, when there is no rush at all towards the southern Mumbai.

In the 'down' direction, two services, both from Borivli to Vasai and Virar are in the morning. And the rest three, two from Borivli and one from Andheri are between 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm.

"We found that even after 8 pm, there was rush at Andheri and Borivli for the northern suburbs. I hope the three new services at night will help us ease the situation to some extent," said Vivek Sahai, additional general manager, WR.

More summer specials

The Western Railway has also planned a total of 596 summer holiday specials between April and June this year. 100 more summer specials are in the pipeline. The special services will start on April 10.

These holiday specials are planned from Mumbai to destinations such as Jodhpur, Ajmer, Porbander, Ahmedabad, Okha and Jammu Tawi. Between Indore and Nizamuddin, there will be biweekly services. Holiday specials between Mumbai and Jaipur will run thrice a week and, in the case of Ahmedabad, they will be available on five days a week.

Apart from Mumbai, special trains will also start from Gandhidham, Ahmedabad and Valsad. It is the first time that a bi-weekly holiday special between Valsad and Gorakhpur will run to cater to the summer rush.