All commuters in the eastern suburbs and parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region will have to cautiously proceed with travel plans this weekend. In view of the 72-hour mega block in the Thane-Diva section beginning from February 5, the Central Railway will cancel at least 193 suburban train services on this day. However, there is also some good news in store. From Monday, the commute should be largely free of cancellations and other glitches.
During the mega block, cut-and-connection works and the commissioning of the new RRI building in Diva for the Thane-Diva 5th and 6th lines will be undertaken.
Railway authorities informed on Friday that they would be cancelling most services on Saturday. There are 1,774 CR services on its Main and Harbour Lines. 350 services will be cancelled in these 72 hours when work on adding the fifth and sixth lines between Thane and Diva will be finally completed, after almost 14 years.
“Around 55 per cent of 350 services shall remain cancelled on Saturday. We are working out measures to ensure that there are no cancellations of local trains on Monday. This will bring respite to those going to work,” said a senior CR official.
Fifty-five per cent works out to around 193 train services, while the remaining 157 services will remain cancelled on Sunday, which will make travel difficult for people residing farther north of Thane, towards Kalyan, Karjat and Kasara.
“During the block period, trains will run on the slow line and the Down fast line. After, 28 hours of block, the Up fast line will be available for traffic. And in the next 44 hours, the fifth and sixth lines will be made available for traffic. We will try to run 100 per cent suburban services on Monday,” said Shivaji Sutar, Chief PRO, Central Railway.
Authorities have requested the municipal corporations of Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli and others to run additional bus services in the mega-block affected sections during this time.
The fifth line (Down) between Thane and Diva has already become operational. The sixth line and the last leg of the corridor expansion project will be activated after the completion of the block this weekend, leading to complete segregation of suburban and outstation train and freight traffic all the way from Kurla LTT till Kalyan.
This block will be undertaken on the existing 5th line and 6th line between Thane and Diva from 00.00 hours of February 5 to Friday/ Saturday midnight 12am to midnight 12am of February 7, Monday. During the block, MEMU services between Vasai Road/ Panvel/ Roha will run on a special timetable.
Further, the CR will operate a mega block on Harbour Line for carrying out maintenance work on February 6. During this period trains on the CSMT-Chunabhatti/ Bandra will be affected from 11.10am to 4.40pm.
