From Friday evening, there will be no train to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) for two days.
No suburban trains will be plying to CST after the 10 pm Badlapur and Bandra trains leave the station on Friday. On Sunday, the first train will reach CST at 11.25 pm.
No trains will go beyond Byculla and Wadala between 10.30 pm on Friday and 10.30 pm on Sunday.
Due to this, all outstation and suburban services will be terminated at Byculla, Dadar and Wadala Road stations. Those travelling to south Mumbai would have to take alternate modes of transport, like BEST buses or taxis.
The next three days will be crucial for a team of over 200 railway officials when they begin breaking remains of the old elevated booking office at Masjid station. Five huge excavators will be placed on four sides of the bridge and they will simultaneously begin demolishing the structure.
“The first thing to be demolished will be the old ramps that take passengers to the platforms. The next will be an old structure and the booking office. Then we shall begin cutting the steel base. It is a work of great precision and detail,” said Rajesh Vardhan, group managing director of Stresscrete India Limited that is implementing the project.
“We shall perform a small puja before we begin the entire demolition work,” said Vardhan.
{{/usCountry}}“We shall perform a small puja before we begin the entire demolition work,” said Vardhan.
{{/usCountry}}The construction of the bridge began in 1857 — the year when the first mutiny for independence took place — and took 10 years to complete. The plaques at the bridge show the dates when the work began and when it was completed. The booking office and the ramps were built in 1924.
Central Railway will videograph the old bridge before it is demolished. It will require about 1,200 workers to complete the work in 48 hours. Altogether, seven excavators, 40 wagons, 18 gascutters and 56 hi-powered halogen lamps will be used.