Mumbai's lifeline to make commute easier

The Mumbai suburban railway will soon have additions in its network. The Western Railway will have another station and there will be direct trains between Panvel and Goregaon.

Oshiwara, the newest station on the suburban railway, gathered pace this week. The tracks have been shifted and the island platform complete to the formation level.

The Oshiwara station will cater to the extended Andheri and Lokhandwala area of the western suburbs. A level crossing that splits the station will have to be shut down for the civil work to be completed.

A road overbridge is being built to connect Goregaon east to west.

“Once the road overbridge is ready, we would be able to shut down the level crossing and complete work on the new Oshiwara station,” said Sharat Chandrayan, Western Railway’s chief spokesperson.

Sources said the new Jogeshwari station platform being built to run harbour line trains is in progress and so is the work at Andheri station. Two dedicated tracks are being laid for the harbour line as part of the project to run direct local trains between Panvel and Goregaon. Presently, harbour line trains terminate at Andheri.

Last year, the railways had to abandoned work after residents opposed the plans to shut the level crossing gate, which is the only connectivity between east and west at Goregaon.

Sources said that to meet the long-pending demand of commuters to build a station at Oshiwara, the authorities began work in 2006 on the station that was to be completed by 2008.

Unlike other stations, the new station will not have separate platforms for east and west.

It will only have one platform that can be approached through two foot overbridges on the north- and south-end of the station where the two booking offices will be located.