Just 54% punctual, Mumbai Central Railway among 10 worst railway divisions

MUMBAI: The Central Railway’s Mumbai division has come under fire from the railway board chairman for its poor punctuality of long-distance trains as only 53.7% of services were found to be punctual.

The punctuality of 69 divisions was monitored in April and CR Mumbai’s overall rank was 60. On the other hand, the Western Railway's division at Mumbai Central has achieved 91.2% punctuality. It’s among the top performers.

Railway board chairman Ashwani Lohani slammed the CR’s Mumbai division during a review meeting of the 10 worst performing divisions across the country. A meeting of the 10 worst divisions was held by the board chairman via video–conferencing. Mumbai is 10th on the list of worst performing divisions.

Central Railway’s Mumbai division handles train traffic to cities in Maharashtra, South India, North Indian and even eastern parts of India. A senior CR official, who attended the meeting, said, “The chairman emphasised on improvement in maintenance practices, especially during the block, so that failures can be brought down to improve punctuality.”

The CR has blamed presence of level crossing gates, particularly at Thakurli, for the poor punctuality. There are level crossing gates at at Diva, Thakurli and Mumbra. These gates remain open for at least 2-4 minutes. All gates remain open for 80 times in day. At Diva and Thakurli, all the six lines, gets affected. Railway officials estimated that the cumulatively, these gates remain open for a tleast 4 hours per day, thus impacting punctuality.

A CR official said, “If the Thakurli level crossing gate in eliminated through a flyover, the punctuality of services can improve by 10 percentage points.”

The elimination of level crossing gates depends on cooperation from the state government. Unless, land is provided for ROBs by local civil administration or the state agencies, the LC will continue to remain open.

A CR official said, “We have completed the work on the Road Over Bridge at Thakurli in our portion more than six months ago. However, Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal corporation is yet to complete work in its portion."

The delay in arrival and departure of long distance trains in Mumbai also has an cascading impact on suburban train services on fast corridor.