Bringing down British era bridge will mean cancelled, diverted services
Bringing down British era bridge will mean cancelled, diverted services
The Central Railway’s (CR) plans to demolish Hancock Bridge in south Mumbai in January for which a block of 18 hours will have to be imposed. This block will result in cancellation of 104 passenger trains, while 669 services to CST will be terminated at Byculla itself.
The Hancock Bridge lies between Masjid Road and Sandhurst Road on the CR’s mainline. Harbour line services will be unaffected. Commuters are expected to face severely overcrowded trains, coupled with services spaced at long intervals.
An official requesting anonymity said that the block between CST and Byculla would be only imposed on a weekend. “We will begin the block at 12.15 am on a Saturday night or Sunday morning and will end it directly at 5.15 pm. The time is required because dismantling such a old bridge built by the British is heavy duty work and also all the overhead equipment like wires and poles its attached to will have to be removed before breaking it down,” said the official.
At the same time there will be no block on the Harbour line on the same day. “People will have no choice, but to shift to the Harbour line at Kurla. To handle the rush, we will also be running extra services between Kurla and CST on Harbour,” added the official.
The railway officers also want the work to be completed before the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) seeks blocks on the Harbour line as work is to be done at Vadala and finally at CST from January to March. The Harbour line is to be converted from the Direct Current (DC) 1,500 volts to Alternate Current (AC) 25,000 volts.
The CR had already imposed an eight-hour night block on all its lines on the morning of December 20, to dismantle the Kasaiwada Bridge at Kurla. All these changes have been made around months before the Railway Budget announced on February 26 every year.
