New services on cards in 3 suburban lines in 6 months

The Central Railway (CR) is to revamp the timetable with new services on the mainline, Harbour and Trans-Harbour in the next six months. The CR has written to the railway board asking for 10 rakes from the 20 that will arrive in the city during this time.

Senior officials have said that the plan is to put around four rakes each on the Harbour and the Trans-Harbour line while the mainline will get the remaining two-rakes.

“The Harbour and the Trans-Harbour can easily accommodate these trains even today but the problem will be the mainline,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

The CR hopes that the work on the additional line between Thane to Diva will act as a “saving grace” in the next six-month period.

This is because despite the CR recently adding 22 services on the Trans-Harbour, 13 on the Harbour and 11 on the mainline, it has brought in only partial relief as the services have been increased in non-peak hours as well as non-peak-direction.

“The work on the Thane-Diva line has already been completed and we hope that within the next six-months this line will be fully operational. If this does happen then the mail express trains that ply on this section will be diverted on this additional line leaving us with a newly available time corridor,” said the official.

On an average one rake is able to churn out 12 services per day. As a result there will at least be 48 new services each on the Harbour and Trans-Harbour and 24 or even more services on the mainline.

Meanwhile, the Western Railway (WR) will be getting the brand new remaining 40-plus Bombardier rakes in the coming year.