MUMBAI: Western Railway will introduce 40 new services, including 16 fifteen-car services and two ladies specials, on Friday. The time table has been planned in a manner to bring relief to commuters staying between Borivli and Virar.
Of the 40 services, 19 are up and 21 down trains. While four services are between Andheri and Churchgate, two are between Bandra and Churchgate. The remaining 36 will cater to Borivli-Virar , which has witnessed a huge growth in the commuter population in recent years due to an increase in residential settlements. These services will originate or terminate at Borivli, Andheri, Dadar and Churchate.
WR’s general manager Mahesh Kumar said, “With this, the total number of WR services will increase from 1,250 to 1,290. It will create an additional carrying capacity of 1.75 lakh per day.” WR’s chief public relations officer Sharat Chandrayan said, “During the evening peak hours, we had at least one ladies’ special service between 5pm and 7pm. The new service will run between 7pm and 8pm.”
In the up direction, the new ladies’ special will start from Vasai Road at 9.56am. In the return direction, it will start from Churchgate at 7.40pm. WR had also decided to convert 10 nine-car services on the main line to 12-car ones. Of the 40, nine will run during peak hours, including six 15-car services. Chandrayan said that most of the newly introduced 15-car services would either operate or terminate at Dadar and Virar. WR is yet to formalize plans to run services up to Dahanu.
