CR has already been forced to park its passenger trains on stabling lines meant for goods trains at Mulund, Bhandup and Ghatkopar.
City rail officials have one wish — albeit a long-term one — from railway minister Suresh Prabhu when he places the railway budget before Parliament on February 25. The need to have more terminal stations in and around Mumbai is getting acute and merely lip-service will not do any more, these officials point out.
In its Tuesday edition, dna had highlighted the issue in an article on how Central Railway (CR) was unable to accept Southern Railway's demand to make the well-patronised 22113/4 Kurla-Kochuveli Superfast express a daily one from its current twice-a-week avatar. The reason, according to CR officials, is that Kurla Terminus is now saturated as far as parking trains is concerned and so accepting new trains would be a logistical nightmare.
CR has already been forced to park its passenger trains on stabling lines meant for goods trains at Mulund, Bhandup and Ghatkopar.
While Prabhu spoke of new satellite terminals in his speech last year, officials said not much has moved on the ground. Speaking in Parliament during his speech, Prabhu had said: "Most of the railway terminals located in big cities are amidst very congested areas. We propose to develop Satellite Railway terminals in major cities with the twin purpose of decongesting the city as well as providing service to passengers residing in suburbs. The satellite terminals will have modern facilities for originating and terminating trains, which will also briefly stop at the existing major terminals. Ten select stations will be taken up in 2015-16 for this purpose."
Officials in the city are unaware if any of Mumbai's stations fall in this list of 10 'select stations'. Meanwhile, proposals made at the zonal level at both Western as well as Central Railways are trapped in files and have seen no movement in almost a year now.
CR's plan to convert the Thakurli power plant land into Kalyan terminus is stuck at the railway ministry for over a year. According to officials in the know, the stretch of land at Thakurli will be in the region of around 80 acres-almost three and half times the size of Oval Maidan — and would be ideal for a terminus. "Preliminary studies of the suitability of the Thakurli power plant land for a terminus are encouraging and with the pace of development in the stretches beyond Thane, the need for a terminus somewhere beyond Thane will arise sooner than later," said a CR official.
On WR, the plan to have a massive terminus at Vasai is still in its infancy. The idea was first floated in late 2013 when WR's operations department chief RK Tandon wrote to then Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) managing director Rakesh Saksena saying a terminal is needed since the two currently operational for long-distance trains — the one at Mumbai Central and Bandra — are getting saturated. The letter stated how WR needed a base in the northern fringes of Mumbai where it could bring in and depart trains to different parts of the country. The terminal can also be used to run trains to the south from WR on the existing Vasai-Diva line which connects WR to Central Railway and allows trains to go from the north to the south of the country and vice-versa.
The terminal would also come in handy to start suburban trains to Borivli and Andheri on the south and Dahanu on the north as the stretch is seeing explosive population and commuter growth, said officials.
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