ROB OVER DIVA STATION TO BE FINISHED SOON

MUMBAI: The 146-year-old Diva railway station, which is infamous for delaying local trains owing to people crossing tracks, is all set to have a road-overbridge (ROB). By March end, the Central Railway (CR) is expecting to complete the work of laying girders over all six rail lines.

Every day, on average, CR opens the level crossing (LC) gate at least 39 times, which leads to train delays of 5 to 7 minutes. However, during trespassing accidents and other unavoidable situations, the delays go up to 15 to 30 minutes. From 2018 to 2022, there have been around 120 deaths reported at the Diva crossing.

“The situation is so pathetic that people cross the LC gate even though the barricades are closed because they want to catch a train. At times, they miss an incoming train, which sadly leads to trespassing accidents. This ROB will be of immense help as the gates at Diva and Kalwa are accident-prone. We hope that as the chief minister is from Thane, the work on the ROBs is expedited,” said Siddesh Desai, a member of Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.

According to CR officials, work on assembling the last five girders is in progress. “The assembly works are underway. We aim to finish the work of launching these girders this month for which mega blocks will soon be undertaken,” said a CR official. “Once this work is complete, the local civic body needs to build the approach roads.”

Ten of the 15 girders have already been installed above the rail tracks. All the spans used for the girders measure 24 metres and 30 metres long.

“At times, despite the LC gate being closed, people continue to cross tracks and even stand close to the it waiting for the trains to pass. The situation is so bad that gatemen in these LC gates are wary of working there,” said another CR official.