Western Railway to do headcount before tweaking services

Mumbai: The Western Railway (WR) will do a headcount of passengers in order to decide how its train services between Churchgate and Andheri can be tweaked once the Harbour line is extended up to Goregaon. The WR is trying to strike a balance between train services between Churchgate and Andheri and those between Churchgate and Goregaon as many commuters exclusively use Andheri trains as they do not like to enter trains headed to Borivali/Virar/Vasai.

WR officials revealed that they will count the number of people using Churchgate-Andheri services and Churchgate-Goregaon services from the end of December when the Harbour line is extended up to Goregaon. The extension will be from Panvel/Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to Andheri to Goregaon. While this comes under the Central Railway (CR), which plans to extend its 100-odd services to Goregaon when the work is completed, the WR has been left in a quandary. Reason being the Churchgate-Andheri trains are used by specific commuters who travel in trains that terminate at Andheri as they find themselves bullied by passengers in Borivali, Virar and Vasai trains and stopped from boarding these trains.