Mumbai: Western Railway commuters up in arms against new AC train schedule

On Monday the city saw history repeat itself Chaos reigned on Western Railway routes as officegoers lost their regular AC locals to the new timetable Earlier this year commuters on Central Railway were caught in a similar situation but the suburban railways failed to learn any lessons Demanding their 754 am BorivliChurchgate AC local back commuters have submitted to WR a petition with 1300 signaturesWhy make such important changes and that too without informing the public well in advancerdquo complained commuters on Western Railway WR With addition of 31 new services on October 1 the new timetable of WR suburban services changed drastically because of which many officegoers missed their usual locals and were late to office on the first working day of this monthAlso read Thane Four held for housebreaking thefts items worth Rs 817 lakh recoveredThe rescheduled localJust like Central Railway saw commuters protest the cancellation of some services and rescheduling of 747 am Dombivli local WR changes left people irked Commuters protested over cancellation and rescheduling of 754 am BorivliChurchgate local on Monday A petition with 1300 signatures of the commuters has been submitted to the WR authoritiesCommuters are hassled as new timetable leads to overcrowding at Mira Road station on Western Railway on Monday morningIronically both Dombivli and Borivli are stations with high revenue for AC trains on their respective lines ldquoThe firstever AC local service in Mumbai was 754 am BorivliChurchgate fast with a fabulous ridership It was ideal for officegoers whose work starts at 930 am But it was suddenly cancelled Who comes up with the idea of cancelling such important servicesrdquo asked commuter Prathamesh SawantlsquoChanges of no usersquoldquoThe revised timetable is of no use Therersquos just one AC local from Virar to Churchgate in the morning peak hour and that too after a gap of 120 hours At Mira Road and Dahisar stations today the Railway Protection Force had to be called to shut the automated train doors as there was overcrowdingrdquo said Hiren Makadia another commuterldquoWith the heat the commute in AC locals was a godsend However with the current timetable changes peak hours are now flat with minimal AC trains particularly from Virar in the morning Currently there is an urgent need to retrofit existing fleets with three dedicated AC coaches resulting in a train of 15 coaches rather than 12 AC locals place too much strain on general trains The only way to simplify the services is by integrated retrofittingrdquo said Ashish R Dwivedi a publicist who commutes from Virar to PrabhadevildquoFurthermore the Railways must be more proactive in terms of preparing and alerting passengers Ideally the timetable should have arrived two weeks before the launch date allowing passengers to adjust their daily travel accordinglyrdquo Dwivedi addedAparna Jadhav a resident of Andheri East learnt about the new timetable after waiting for her regular AC local for several minutes ldquoTimely announcements of the revised timetable would have been better and saved me from the hassle and from getting late to officerdquo she saidWill restore service WRldquoWe have taken note of the complaints We have included two services in the morning peak hours from Borivli826 am and 1016 am trains The other services have been extended to Virar to cater to more commuters based on the demand However we are getting one more AC train into service soon We will try to see how we can work towards fulfilling commutersrsquo demand once we get the new trainrdquo said Sumit Thakur chief public relations officer WRIts raining inside KalyanCSMT AC localCentral Railway commuters witnessed showers inside the KalyanCSMT AC local in the dry city The roof of the womenrsquos coach was leaking and the ldquowater flow was intense and caused inconveniencerdquo said commuter Sheela Mullick ldquoThere was leakage from the AC duct of one coach no 7066B in K36 train It was possibly due to malfunctioning of the temperature sensor It was attended to immediately An investigation is underway by downloading the data at the car shedrdquo a CR spokesperson said A few evening AC services were cancelled on CROct 1Day the new timetable came into effect