Commuters on the Harbour line travelling to office and back home on Friday will have to deal with a reduction of services by 24 per cent, and no services at all between Vadala and Chhatrapati Shivaji
Commuters on the Harbour line travelling to office and back home on Friday will have to deal with a reduction of services by 24 per cent, and no services at all between Vadala and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) for two days after that, as the Central Railway (CR) finally declared the 72-hour block.
The block that will start from Friday morning to Monday morning will be done in two phases with the most intense blow dealt on Friday morning with only 445 services to be operated instead of the usual 590.
CR divisional railway manager Amitabh Ojha said on Wednesday that as a result of shutting down the CST’s platform no. 2, services would ply only from platform no. 1, due to which commuters would be inconvenienced. “On Friday, services will run up to CST but since work of extending platform no. 2 will be underway, we will run 445 services and trains are expected to be delayed by three to five minutes,” he said.
The second phase of the block will be seen on the Harbour line’s section between CST and Vadala on Saturday and Sunday, due to which commuters can travel up to only Vadala or switch to Kurla to make their way to CST. “Trains that will start from Panvel, Belapur and Vashi as well as Bandra and Andheri will operate only up to Vadala. Similarly, trains will begin from Vadala to Panvel and Andheri and not from CST,” he added.
The block is being operated to increase the number of coaches on each train from nine to 12. But there is still a long way to go, and the block will not mean that 12-coach trains will ply from Monday. “I would like to clarify that the block is being operated only to do work related to increasing the number of coaches to 12, like signalling, track alignment and increasing the platform itself. If all goes according to the plan, the actual 12-coach trains might run from April,” said Mr Ojha.
Harbour line pass and ticket holders will be allowed to travel on the CR’s mainline on Saturday and Sunday and the mainline will be running its services at full strength on Sunday, with normal services to be resumed on Monday morning.
