Construction of road-over-bridge hits Sunday CR services

Mumbai: Services on the Central Railway (CR) were limited as the work of launching of six steel girders (37.84 metres long) of Kharegaon road-over-bridge, by a road crane by a 650-metre crane from 10:48 am to 4:30 pm, was held on Sunday. This took an hour more than Sunday’s usual mega-block.

Slow and semi fast locals departing from Mulund were diverted on fast line up to Kalyan. Halts at Thane, Diva and Dombivili were delayed. In addition, services towards Chhatrapatti Shivaji Terminus were also affected as the CR diverted slow and semi fast services from Diva to Mulund, then re-diverted on the slow lines at Mulund again.

Commuters like Ashok Kamble (45), who was travelling from Dombivli to CST said his train took over an hour to reach Thane and an additional one-and-a-half hours to reach all the way up to his destination, Sion. “I had a terrible time travelling today, although the announcement of the block was made on Friday and Saturday, I did not expect the effect on the services would be so acute,” he said.

Shama Sawant (45), a banker travelling from Andheri to Thane, said had she known about the intensity of the block, she wouldn’t have ventured out. CR’s PRO, A.K. Singh said, “We finished the block within time, and there was a delay in services but we made sure the announcement was made in advance for commuters to plan accordingly”.