The cut-down of travel time between Mumbai and Pune will still take some more time as Central Railways failed during trials on the route with superfast Intercity Express.
The new train, which aims to shorten the time travel to two hours and thirty-five minutes, reached both Pune and Mumbai behind schedule on its 7th and last trial. As a result, the Central Railway has announced that it will revert to the old schedule that takes three hours and seventeen minutes.
In spite of monitoring by Mumbai and Pune divisions, the train failed on the trials. The train reached Pune and Mumbai behind schedule on all the seven times. On the 7th and the last trial, the train reached Pune 20 minutes behind schedule.
Moreover, the train had got away with halt at Karjat station where it used to stop for changing of engines. This also created a huge problem for students and office-goers, who used to board the train from Karjat.
"It was a stupid dream by Central Railway. They were depriving passengers of their right. Earlier, passengers could take the Indrayani Express, but since that was extended to Solapur, office-goers and students heavily depend on the Intercity at Karjat station. It used to halt to add additional engines there. With that gone, passengers are left without an option," Zonal Railway Users' Consultative Committee member Nitin S Parmar told Mid-Day.
The distance from Mumbai to Pune is 192 km and the Intercity Express takes 3 hours 17 minutes to cover this distance at present. The revised trains sought to take 2 hours and 35 minutes for the journey, thereby cutting the journey time by about 40 minutes.
