From January, Ladies Specials will accommodate men too

Ladies Special trains on trans-harbour line will no longer be “ladies only” as men will be allowed to travel in six out of the 12 coaches starting January next year. The decision was taken after male commuters complained to the stationmaster at Thane that special services from Thane to Vashi and Thane to Panvel were running almost empty.

Currently, there are three services exclusively for female commuters on trans-harbour, including Thane to Panvel (9.14 am), Thane to Vashi (9.50 am) and Panvel to Thane (5.42 pm). From January, these hitherto women-only services will be converted to services with six “ladies only” coaches and the remaining six as general coaches. Four such services will be run in the morning and four in the evening.

An official, requesting anonymity, said, “Basically, from three ladies specials that run half-empty, we will run eight services with coaches equally split between men and women. We will run four of these services in the morning and four in the evening during peak-hours.” A total of eight services will be run for the benefit of commuters, said the official.

Commuters like Ashok Kamble (45), a marketing professional who travels from Thane to Vashi, said that the train after the ladies special arrives nearly 10 minutes later, making it very difficult to secure even a fourth seat as there is huge clamour to get into the train when it arrives.

“The ladies special from Thane to Vashi is at 9.14 am after which the next train is at 9.24 am but by then, the platform itself is completely filled with male commuters and people jump into the train as soon as it arrives and it is almost deadly to get into this train. The ladies special goes nearly half-empty so the change is a good thing,” he said.

However, Vasundhara Aiyer (25), who travels from Thane to Nerul said that the decision was not good. “Women will again have to travel in crowded trains. The ladies special was started to give some comfort to us. But I am upset that they are withdrawing the facility,” she said.

The transformation has been part of Central Railway’s (CR) plan to provide more services to commuters and decrease the rush during peak hours after 21-year-old Bhavesh Nakate fell off a train and died on November 27.

Further, the trans-harbour has got 22 new services, which is the highest in any section in CR. Followed by mainline harbour with 11 services and CR mainline with 7 new services. In all, there are 40 new services which are most likely to be introduced on January 26 with the not-so-ladies special on trans-harbour.

MP donates Rs 50 lakh for coach redesign

MP Kirit Somaiya on Saturday has pledged Rs 50 lakh to the CR to tinker around with the design of current local train coaches so as to accommodate more passengers. Mr Somaiya has said it has to be a two-way street with representatives putting their money where their mouth is. “The CR officials said that to redesign one coach they would need '50 lakh and that this money would come after the Railway Budget which happens in February. Hence, by contributing money from the fund, they can start the work immediately,” he said.