Central Railway to hold 3 more 10-hour blocks

In a move that may further inconvenience commuters, the Central Railway (CR) will hold three more 10-hour megablocks on October 2, 16 and 23 at the Diva railway station to complete the ongoing upgradation work that would enable fast trains to halt at the station.

Railway sources, however, insisted that the move, which might aggravate commuter hassle, would eventually provide them long-term relief in terms of more services.

The CR had undertaken a 10-hour block on September 18, which was the first of the total four blocks at Diva. The move to provide the halt to fast trains at Diva was taken to placate the public after a major riot owing to delayed trains, back in January last year that stunned the railways and the city police alike.

In a press conference held at CR’s Chhatrapatti Shivaji Terminus (CST) on Friday, officials revealed that 10-hour block carried out on September 18 was successful despite cancellation of 180 services and delay of 15 to 30 minutes. Officials said the work would continue up to its term.

CR general manager Akhil Agrawal said, “We held a successful block on September 18 and the remaining 10-hour blocks will be taken as planned. This will mean the major infrastructure work to enable the fast trains to halt at Diva, including the new platforms and the track connections, will be ready by October 23,” he said.

Ravindra Goyal, divisional railway manager, however, said this did not mean fast trains operations would commence immediately from October 23 or 24 morning as a new timetable would have to be worked out to allow the trains to halt at Diva. “Even if the work is completed by October 23, we will not be able to halt the fast trains at Diva immediately that day itself. We will need to work out a completely new time-table and also re-coordinate the timings of all services,” said Mr Goyal.

The CR had changed the mainline time-table on March 19, in which roughly 14 new services were added on the line between suburbs and far-off suburbs.