10.11.08

Western Railway snippets


Realising the shift of residential population further north, Western Railway (WR) has decided to start 23 new train services for commuters residing between Borivli and Virar. The WR will run many of the new services from Dadar and Andheri as corporates are moving base from south Mumbai to the suburbs. Of the new services, 12 will be in the down direction while 11 in the up direction, towards Churchgate. As a result, the total number of WR services will increase to 1,156 from 1,133. Also, the services on the Virar sector will increase from 347 to 370. The new services include two up and three down trains between Dadar and Virar. There is one new service between Dadar and Vasai Road and another between Dadar and Bhayander. The other new services are between Andheri and Virar, Vasai Road and Andheri, Bhayander and Andheri, Borivli and Virar, Virar and Churchgate, and Churchgate and Bhayander.Statistics released by WR for April-July, 2007 and 2008, revealed that four of the seven stations between Borivli and Virar had double digit growth in number of commuters. “The suburbs of Naigaon, Mira Road, Dahisar and Nalasopara saw a drastic rise in the sale of season tickets,’’ said the WR report. Analysing the reason for the exponential growth in commuters in these areas, WR officials said real estate is cheaper there, which has led to a demographic shift. Unfortunately, connectivity by road to Mumbai has not been developed adequately, forcing people to rely only on trains. In order to accommodate the huge jump in the number of passengers, WR had introduced 78 more services on the Virar section since July 2007. However, the trains still go packed.In order to help ease the problem of over-crowding on these sections, WR had plans to increase the the number of services by over 200 in this financial year.

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