Maintenance works, freight movement causing local city train delays

Several commuters have complained that the trains on the Central Railway (CR) are consistently running behind schedule, with 10 minutes lag on the slow line and 20 minutes on the fast line.

The CR reasoned that primarily there are two reasons for the delay; first the maintenance works on several stretches like Dombivli-Diva, Thane-Kalwa, among others. The second cause is the CR’s aggressive push for meeting the freight and goods movement deadline by March 31.

On March 30, the CR achieved the achievement of carrying 75 million tonnes of freight and Goods, surpassing the earlier record set between April, 2021 and March 28 this year.

"We have to meet the targets for this financial year so preference is given to freight trains. From April, this push for cargo will slightly come down and will also help in running local and passenger trains in a better way," said a CR official.

Whereas other issues like unexpected technical problems also add to the delay. For eg, a locomotive-Train number 22108 Latur to CSMT-stopped at 7.05 am on Wednesday between Badlapur and Ambernath section due to mechanical error. This affected the morning peak hours as local trains running from Karjat, Badlapur and Ambernath towards Kalyan and CSMT got affected. In the evening the local trains were again affected on Khardi-Umbermali down line.

At around 4.35 pm, a motorman reported a fire in dry grass near the down line track. It took around one hour to douse the fire and restore normalcy. On March 29, there was a signal failure at Thane, which again affected train services.

Speed restrictions between 15 kmph to 75 kmph have been imposed on the local trains leading to the bunching of local trains causing delays. The speed restrictions are expected to be removed soon after the completion of track works, officials said.

The speed restrictions are expected to be removed soon after the completion of track works, officials said