Mumbai: The Western Railways (WR) recently accepted its ‘inability’ to adopt a cyclic timetable for local trains running from Churchgate to Virar and vice versa. The WR, instead patted its own back, by highlighting before the Bombay High Court its ‘striving’ efforts to reduce accidental deaths and overcrowding in local trains.
The concept of cyclic timetable entails starting suburban services from Churchgate to different suburban terminals on fast and slow corridors, at a frequency of three minutes, for a time period of 20 hours in a day. Interestingly, the WR has trashed the contention that implementing a cyclic timetable would reduce accidental deaths and overcrowding, which would ensure that no stampede incidents take place.
In its affidavit filed through Prakash Chandrapal, the deputy chief operations manager, before a bench headed by Justice Naresh Patil, the WR has instead blamed citizens for ‘flouting norms.’ The WR has said that citizens conveniently use tracks instead of the ‘numerous’ Foot Over Bridges (FOBs) and Road Over Bridges (ROBs).
The affidavit states, “Though the railways have initiated various steps from time to time to curb trespassing, the common man adopts short cut techniques as a result of which untoward incidents occur. The commuters blatantly flout the rules. Thus, the contention that lack of infrastructure and poor management by the railway authorities leads to death of commuters is incorrect.” Though the railway authorities accepted that a cyclic timetable could reduce overcrowding, yet it dismissed the view that the schedule would ensure no repeat of stampedes.
“As a concept, the cyclic timetable may have potential to reduce overcrowding for a network having one or two terminals. If the cyclic timetable is implemented and end to end services are launched, then if such services are cancelled, it will in fact lead to more overcrowding. Thus, the stampede at the Elphinstone station bridge should not be correlated to the implementation of cyclic timetable,” the affidavit states.
In a surprising stand, the WR has claimed that there is ‘uniformity’ in the present timetable and the trains are ‘punctual.’ The authorities have claimed they provide the ‘most optimum’ services. “In the present time table there is at least uniformity in the running pattern of services, thus, it is incorrect to say that citizens have to lose an hour or more of his/her time waiting for another train in order to reach their destination,” the railway authorities have claimed.
Among the other reasons cited by the WR for not adopting the cyclic timetable, the most interesting is the cancellation of ladies special trains. The affidavit claims, “If implemented the cyclic timetable would lead to elimination of several patronised and popular services, especially the ladies special trains.”
The affidavit further states that a cyclic schedule can only be tried on a system in which there is a separate corridor for suburban services and exclusive lines for Mail expresses. However, at present the same cannot be implemented on WR since both local and mail expresses run on the same corridors. Having considered the submissions of the WR, the bench too rejected the plea for a cyclic timetable.