Railways’ diamond jubilee aim: To finish pending projects by 2011

The Central Railway and Western Railway have decided to try and complete long pending projects before their diamond jubilee on November 5, 2011.

The Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) have decided to try and complete long pending projects before their diamond jubilee on November 5, 2011.

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The CR and WR, both established in 1951, will enter their 60th year on November 5.

The CR was formed after integrating the Great Indian Peninsular railways with then Nizam state railways at Secunderabad and Hyderabad, Scindia state railways at Gwalior and Dholpur state railways at Bhopal.

However many of these stations were removed from the CR after forming newer divisions in 2003.

The WR was formed by integrating Bombay, Baroda and the Central India Railway with other state railways such as Saurashtra, Rajputana and Jaipur.

The CR have listed some of their projects which will improve suburban train services as well as provide better passenger amenities at stations.

“We hope to complete a slew of developmental projects. We will try to start work on the revamp of CST by 2011,” said S Mudgerikar, chief PRO, CR. This project will change the entire face of this UNESCO world heritage structure, built in the late 19th century.

This will allow separation of outstation trains from the suburban line, thus improving the suburban services.
The CR will also try to complete traction conversion of trains from 1,500-volt direct current (DC) to 25,000-volt alternating current (AC) up to Thane, allowing trains to run at a better speed.

A train management system will also be installed between CST-Kalyan allowing people to know the exact time a train will reach the station. Even the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus building is expected to complete.

The WR too aims to complete pending projects. “The 1,500-volt DC to 25,000-volt AC conversion between Borivli and Churchgate will be completed by 2011,” said S Chandrayan, chief PRO, Western Railway.

They also plan to complete work on new station buildings at Borivli and Andheri, apart from getting new trains under phase-I of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project.