Central Railway (CR) may soon start to resemble a battleground, what with the inter-departmental fight over whether coaches from Western Railway (WR) should be used to convert harbour to 12-coaches or to replace nearly 144 old coaches on the mainline.
According to officials however, irrespective of which side wins, commuters on both harbour and the mainline stand to lose. Officials said there are now two schools of thought within CR and each has a valid point, making it a tough decision to make. “On the one hand, if we do not scrap the 144 coaches that are running past their warranty, it might become a problem if derailment takes place in Mumbai and people are injured or worse. On the other hand, harbour has been bursting at the seams with travelling in nine-coaches becoming next to impossible as people have shifted to areas like Kharghar and Mansarova and there is fear that a Diva-like riot might occur,” said an official.
The decision will have to be made soon as harbour is to be converted to 12-coach by March 2016 coinciding with when railway officials plan to convert the line from direct current to alternating current. “Either way, commuters on mainline or harbour will lose and the final call will be taken by March and only then will we know,” he said.
