To protest the irregular services on the Central Railway line, commuters held two separate rail rokos on Friday at Asangaon and Vasind, blocking a long-distance train.
While Western Railway (WR) recovered from Tuesday's downpour by Wednesday morning, services on Central Railway (CR) are still limping back to normalcy. Only one line, that used by long distance trains, is functional. Local trains are plying between Kalyan and Titwala, and Kasara and Asangaon. Thus, those boarding from Vasind are forced to go all the way to Titwala.
This has been the state since the derailment of the Nagpur-Mumbai Duranto Express on August 29. A protest was held at Vasind from 7.50 am to 8.15 am, and at Asangaon from 8.30 am to 8.45 am.
The Railway Police and local police came and disbursed the crowd.
The Government Railway Police (GRP) had warned the railways of the situation going out of hand on Wednesday. In a letter sent to the Railways on August 30, GRP said there was tremendous resentment among the public about the quality of train services. Any delay/cancellation of train services could lead to law and order problems.
On September 3, the trains will run according to the Sunday timetable – services shall be reduced by 20-25 percent. "We are sure of running train services to the full strength by September 4," said Ravindra Goyal, Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), Central Railway. CR has already cancelled over 1800 local train services – there are 1660 services on a normal day, using 122 trains.
Water logging at several stretches is not the only cause for disruption, the derailment near Asangaon also punctured punctuality. "We are running fewer trains because they get marooned in water logged areas," said a CR official.
On August 29, 35 trains were marooned which had to be pulled into yards using diesel locomotives. The authorities have bought 60 high-powered blow driers at cost of Rs 3 lakhs to dry them. By September 2, only 10 trains will be left to be dried.
Long-distance trains too have been severely affected. Since August 29, more than 80 outstation trains have been cancelled; several have been short terminated. The financial losses have run into crores. In last three days, they have refunded nearly Rs 11 crore to passengers for train cancellations.
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