New Oshiwara station likely to ease crowds at Jogeshwari
This would decrease the footfall at Jogeshwari station, which is relatively small.
Mumbai: Western Railway (WR) commuters can look forward to relatively less crowds at Jogeshwari and Andheri stations with the railways having decided to halt slow trains at the soon-to-be inaugurated Oshiwara station.
Oshiwara station, coming up between Jogeshwari and Goregaon, has been under construction for the past one decade, but with pending issues having finally been resolved, WR plans to stop all slow trains at the brand new station.
Jogeshwari, a comparatively small station immediately after Andheri, saw an increase in footfall with nearly 60,000 tickets sold each day at its counters late last year. The number increased to 1 lakh early- to mid-2016 and finally reached 2.5 lakh by the end of October this year. With a total of five platforms and foot-over-bridges, it is difficult to navigate Jogeshwari station during peak hours.
WR divisional railway manager Mukul Jain said, “We hope that there will be a little diffusion in footfall at Jogeshwari, which had started to become too crowded during rush hours. Even though a non-Mumbaikar may not fully comprehend advantages like these, everyday travellers will know that this would be a big relief.”
WR has already made changes in its timetable a month ago to accommodate the extra halt at Oshiwara station by giving a cushion of 30 seconds. This will ensure that trains do not get delayed from the current timetable being followed. “We had made the timetable keeping this change in mind, so it won’t be a case where the current timetable of slow services on WR will be affected,” said Mr Jain.
Going by the number of tickets sold at counters, Andheri station sees an average of 6.7 lakh commuters every day while Goregaon sees around 3.6 lakh.