Pune railway station yard remodelling work to begin next month
Nearly six years after the announcement by the Pune railway division, the Pune yard remodelling work will finally begin next month at the Pune railway station
Pune: Nearly six years after the announcement by the Pune railway division, the Pune yard remodelling work will finally begin next month at the Pune railway station.
Remodelling work will initially start at platform number 6, which will remain closed for train operations. Once the length of platform number 6 is increased, the railway will undertake similar construction work at platforms 2 and 3. Apart from this, other work will also be carried out to enhance train operations and passenger facilities, while the three double diamond crossings (DDCs) will be eliminated for faster and smoother train movement. At the same time, a ‘multilevel parking building’ will come up near the DRM office for both railway and Metro passengers.
Renu Sharma, Pune divisional railway manager (DRM), said, “The Pune yard remodelling work is about to start now; it will be carried out in a phase-wise manner and initially, the platform extension and removing of the double diamond crossings (DDCs) will take place. The less the number of DDCs at a station, the smoother the train operations are. The work was pending since the last many years for which there are many reasons including the pandemic. Now however, the actual work will begin, with platform number 6 to be extended first followed by platform numbers 2 and 3.”
Presently, the Pune railway station has six platforms out of which only platform number 1 has the capacity for boarding trains with 24+ coaches. While the remaining platforms namely 2, 3, 4 and 5 have capacity for boarding only 22-coach trains even as platform 6 has capacity for boarding only 18-coach trains. As such, there is a lot of pressure on Pune railway station as it daily runs more than 230 train operations via six platforms.
The remodelling of Pune railway station and its yard was planned in order to increase and further develop operations of long-distance trains with more than 24 coaches from Pune railway station. Earlier, remodelling works at the Pune railway station were carried out in 2009 after which in 2018, the then DRM Milind Deouskar planned and announced the new remodelling project looking at the increasing number of footfalls and train operations. Under the latest remodelling project, the length of all platforms will be increased in a phase-wise manner such that passengers can board 26-coach trains from all platforms. The Pune railway station had sent a proposal to the central board of railways and after much to-and-fro for permissions and two years of the Covid pandemic, the work is finally set to begin next month.
Sharma said, “The main reason and purpose behind this yard remodelling work is to improve the train operations and move faster than before. Currently, we cannot take trains with more than 24 coaches to platforms other than platform number 1. Hence as a permanent solution, a proposal for remodelling was put by the Pune railway division before the central board of railways, which also got funds in a phase-wise manner. It is the need of the hour as presently, most of the train timings are affected and we need to keep the punctuality.”
