The Central Railway (CR) has elevated its tracks in areas like Masjid Bunder and Sandhurst Road in order to increase the speed of trains and improve their overall punctuality, as rainwater submerges t
The Central Railway (CR) has elevated its tracks in areas like Masjid Bunder and Sandhurst Road in order to increase the speed of trains and improve their overall punctuality, as rainwater submerges tracks in low-lying areas, restricting the speed, therefore, delaying the trains.
The tracks lying at Masjid and Sandhurst Road areas were lifted by four inches at the end of last week, but officials said the plan is to raise the height of the tracks as much as they can between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and Kurla and include low-lying areas like Sion and Matunga as well.
The CR took this step after experiencing a series of delays — including the rail-roko at Badlapur in August, which had brought the line to a halt for five-hours. “We have three assets that we can improve: the track, the overhead equipment and the signalling system. We are working out on how to improve the others but we could identify some spots on the tracks that were too low and thereby more prone to flooding, as a result of which we have raised the Sandhurst and Masjid tracks,” said an official on the condition of anonymity.
CR has received severe criticism, with railway activist like Lata Argade who has said that these areas should have been spotted and the tracks lifted before the monsoon. “These works are not extremely difficult or aren’t ones that cannot be thought of before the monsoon, so why the delay ” she said.
After the Badlapur incident, sources have said that the Union minister Suresh Prabhu himself had been asking for personal updates about the CR’s progress since Mumbai where he resides.
