One of the busiest railway stations in Mumbai is Kalyan, which links not just the local trains but also the long-distance ones connecting Pune and Nashik. Its Rs 961 crore plus overhaul just got a fillip as the Central Railway (CR) have called for tenders and expect to begin work soon after appointing contractors for work on remodeling of Kalyan yard.
This work is important for laying more rail lines in the near future and also revamp of the entire Kalyan railway station done by Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (ISRDC). Primarily the CR authorities will identify points – these chiefly help trains to go from one rail line to other – and shift them.
Senior railway officials said that there are more than 100 rail points that needs to be shifted, create space for laying additional rail tracks, shift signaling system and construct new platforms for the trains. The project includes construction of additional six platforms dedicated for long distance trains. The existing eight platforms will be dedicated only for local services. The project will also include installing of route relay interlocking (RRI) at Kalyan station, which is vital for managing signaling systems.
“Kalyan is a hub and it needs to be expanded for the future. The yard remodeling will help us in creating the much-needed impetus to the system. It will then allow us to segregate long-distance trains with suburban local trains that will lead to faster movement of trains,” said a senior CR official on condition of anonymity.
The remodeling of Kalyan was first planned in 2018 after the Prabhadevi (erstwhile Elphinstone Road) station stampede, to ease crowding at Kalyan station. The yard remodeling will help in adding the third and fourth rail lines on Kalyan-Karjat and Kalyan-Kasara routes thus augmenting rail infrastructure.
In fact under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-3A, there are plans to add 3rd and 4th rail lines on Kalyan-Badlapur section at a cost of Rs 1510 crore and 4th line on Kalyan-Asangaon section at cost of Rs 1759 crore.
Before Covid-19, Kalyan railway station saw daily footfall of over 5 lakh commuters and operates over 750 local and outstation train services every day. A total of 227 outstation trains halt at Kalyan railway station every day. Even in this pandemic, majority of crowd leaving Mumbai and its metropolitan region, from Kalyan. However, there are not enough tracks to cater to so many services plus long distance trains occupy space meant for local trains thus causing delays in train operations.
