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Western Railway: Coaches to run on the slow-line are ready

Three years ago, it was planned to run 15 coaches on a slower route between Andheri and Virar in order to ease overcrowding on Mumbai locals.

Western Railway: Coaches to run on the slow-line are ready
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Even though the Mumbai locals is not ferrying general citizens at the moment, the coaches to run on a slower route from Andheri to Virar station are reportedly ready.

As the number of passengers at stations like Andheri, Borivali, Bhainder, Mira Road, Virar of Western Railway (WR) is increasing day by day, morning and evening travel is becoming life-threatening due to overcrowding by the citizens. In order to facilitate this journey, it was planned to run 15 coaches on a slower route between Andheri and Virar about three years ago.

Moreover, a provision of INR 59.56 crores was made for this project. Many technical works like lengthening of platforms, railway yard, rails, overhead wires have been completed. Last year, due to lack of manpower, the work had to take a break. However, after the rains, work was resumed in Mumbai. It was also planned to run an additional 15 local rounds on this route from January 2021 and thereafter from March 2021.

According to sources, WR has clarified that it is not possible to run new rounds of 15 coaches at present due to restrictions imposed by the state government as the number of coronavirus patients is increasing rapidly again. At present, 15 coaches are running fast on the Western Railway from Churchgate to Dahanu, Virar.

On the other hand, back in 2009, WR had introduced 15-car services between Dadar and Virar. Later, on January 28, 2011, it extended the services till Churchgate after extending platforms 3 and 4. The 15-car trains, however, do not halt between Dadar and Churchgate due to the shorter length of platforms.

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