Central Railway: Testing commuters patience !!
Since last one year, repairs have been carried out to Parsik Tunnel almost on regular basis. All this has imposed speed restrictions on the rail traffic on both up down directions. Adding upto 10 mins of precious travel time of commuters. All this is happening with out any formal plan or end date in sight.
The speed restrictions often leads to pile-up of trains (both local and mail/exp) trains upto Diva station on the fast Up track while the Slow Up track is virtually free. For the organisation which boasts of having latest Train Management System (TMS) cannot sense this pile up and plan some remedial action immediately. Similar situation on Western Railway gets handled in a different manner, trains services are re-routed on other tracks thus limiting impact to just 2-3 consecutive locals.
Central Railway has majority of commuters from far off suburbs like Badlapur, Titwala, Asangaon. The commuter traffic has gone up exponentially in these new suburbs as you can see the trains crowded at starting and ending points. People travelling to these suburbs have a travel time of minimum 45+ mins, all the delays tests their patience on daily basis. We understand that services cannot be added due to capacity issues but even ensuring trains running ontime can be of great help/relief to commuters.
Another flow of commuters is from Kalyan and beyond to Navi Mumbai, they change to Trans Harbour link at Thane. This adds to commuters getting into fast locals to get down at Thane thus depriving genuine commuters who have to travel to Dadar/CST or Western suburbs. There have been numerous request made by passenger groups to start Kalyan to Vashi service via Parsik tunnel. This one service can make difference to 40% commuters commutting from Kalyan to CST. Earlier it was AC-DC conversion issue but now with everything AC, the service can be started. There are numerous slots in Thane Vashi schedule which can be taken up by these services, only leveraging available capacity.
Due to agitation of commuters in Diva new platform was built tracks diverted with objective to give halts to fast trains. CR fails to understand that the traffic between Thane & Dombivli is very dense, thus in the morning even if the train stops, there would be space only for one passenger to get it and others clinging on footboard. Waste of time. From what has been published in dailies, fast trains from Kasara and Karjat have been given halts one of the most sarcastic decisions !!
Another Bottleneck is Kalyan Junction. Trains have to wait for upto 10 mins to get berthed on a platform, this is applicable to all trains passing thru this station. Why is it so difficult to have simple SOP to berth the train as it reaches home signal rather than thinking for 10 mins adding to travel time and commuter woes.
Looks like CR leadership team sitting out of Head Office is conveniently ignorant of the facts and proudly publishing on-time statistics of over 90%, ground reality is grossly different.
True test of Commuter patience !!
Since last one year, repairs have been carried out to Parsik Tunnel almost on regular basis. All this has imposed speed restrictions on the rail traffic on both up down directions. Adding upto 10 mins of precious travel time of commuters. All this is happening with out any formal plan or end date in sight.
The speed restrictions often leads to pile-up of trains (both local and mail/exp) trains upto Diva station on the fast Up track while the Slow Up track is virtually free. For the organisation which boasts of having latest Train Management System (TMS) cannot sense this pile up and plan some remedial action immediately. Similar situation on Western Railway gets handled in a different manner, trains services are re-routed on other tracks thus limiting impact to just 2-3 consecutive locals.
Central Railway has majority of commuters from far off suburbs like Badlapur, Titwala, Asangaon. The commuter traffic has gone up exponentially in these new suburbs as you can see the trains crowded at starting and ending points. People travelling to these suburbs have a travel time of minimum 45+ mins, all the delays tests their patience on daily basis. We understand that services cannot be added due to capacity issues but even ensuring trains running ontime can be of great help/relief to commuters.
Another flow of commuters is from Kalyan and beyond to Navi Mumbai, they change to Trans Harbour link at Thane. This adds to commuters getting into fast locals to get down at Thane thus depriving genuine commuters who have to travel to Dadar/CST or Western suburbs. There have been numerous request made by passenger groups to start Kalyan to Vashi service via Parsik tunnel. This one service can make difference to 40% commuters commutting from Kalyan to CST. Earlier it was AC-DC conversion issue but now with everything AC, the service can be started. There are numerous slots in Thane Vashi schedule which can be taken up by these services, only leveraging available capacity.
Due to agitation of commuters in Diva new platform was built tracks diverted with objective to give halts to fast trains. CR fails to understand that the traffic between Thane & Dombivli is very dense, thus in the morning even if the train stops, there would be space only for one passenger to get it and others clinging on footboard. Waste of time. From what has been published in dailies, fast trains from Kasara and Karjat have been given halts one of the most sarcastic decisions !!
Another Bottleneck is Kalyan Junction. Trains have to wait for upto 10 mins to get berthed on a platform, this is applicable to all trains passing thru this station. Why is it so difficult to have simple SOP to berth the train as it reaches home signal rather than thinking for 10 mins adding to travel time and commuter woes.
Looks like CR leadership team sitting out of Head Office is conveniently ignorant of the facts and proudly publishing on-time statistics of over 90%, ground reality is grossly different.
True test of Commuter patience !!
