More skywalks soon to curb track crossing: Railway top brass

The railways will propose a dense network of pedestrian bridges and skywalks to curb increasing number of  deaths on tracks due to tresspassing.

This was announced by Central Railway general manager Subodh Jain after a man was crushed to death while trespassing at Mumbra on Thursday.

Jain said his officials had spoken to the Thane civic body about a new foot overbridge to be built at the site.

Jain said escalators had also been planned at major and crowded suburban stations for mass transit so that more and more commuters could use them.

“We will recommend to the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation to take up the issue of skywalks with the state government. There are limitations on what the railways can do alone, but we are ready to give permissions and build bridges in areas where ever they are required,’’ he told DNA.

“We have studied the problem in detail and what Mumbai needs is skywalks and pedestrian bridges that will run parallel to the rail lines, where most of the shanties and residential colonies have come up,” Jain said.

“Road overbridges can come at places where there are level crossings and wherever state government approaches us, we shall give permissions at the earliest.”

Recently, National Railway Safety Committee chairman Anil Kakodkar had asked the local railways to find solutions to overcrowding, trespassing and other such issues that led to deaths on the suburban railway network.