An Alternate to Elevated Kalva-Airoli Rail Link

  Recently, there was a news regarding a proposed elevated rail link between Kalva-Airoli being approved by the State Govt and being sent to the Railway Board(RB) for inclusion in budgetary approvals by Ministry of Railways. I would like to delve into this proposal and reason out why this link is a costly and unnecessary addition to the Mumbai Suburban Network of Central Railways(CR), when an alternate and cheaper solution is at hand.

CR Local Line (CST-Kalyan) and CR Trans-Harbour Line(THB, Thane-Vashi / Panvel) is set to go AC in the next 2 years. Also on the anvil are the additional 2 lines between Thane(TNA) and Diva Jn(DW) with completion expected by 2016. We can safely believe that CST-Kurla (4 lines), Vidyavihar(VVH) - Kalyan(KYN) (6 lines) will be ready in next 2 years of which TNA-DW ( 4 lines) will pass through Kalva, Mumbra and 2 lines will pass through the long Parsik(PSK) tunnel. After the completion of the additional lines between TNA-DW, all the Mail / Express trains will continue to use the PSK tunnel whereas the slow and fast trains will be routed via Kalva-Mumbra.

Pic Courtesy :Wikimapia.

As we proceed north of TNA, 4 lines will diverge towards Kalva and 4 lines (Mail/ Express lines and THB lines) will further travel further north. Now, as the THB lines divulge towards east (Airoli), there is a single line track which forms a triangle at this juncture which connects the PSK tunnel south exit of the Mail/ Express lines with the THB lines towards Airoli. This single line is in a dilapidated state and is used occasionally by freight trains bound to Turbhe APMC Market. The proposed elevated rail link will have to ramp up a few metres before this triangle and cross the 2 Mail / Express lines by a Rail over Rail bridge (ROR) and then proceed a few kms on an elevated path to cross the 4 CR local lines (TNA-DW) again by an ROR bridge and then drop off the ramp just before the Kalva station and carshed.

In the current context, there are slow trains at a frequency of 4 minutes between TNA-DW/KYN and trains between TNA-Vashi / Panvel at a frequency of 10-12 minutes. Assuming that the relatively empty slot between TNA-Vashi schedule is used to introduce trains between Kalyan(KYN)-Vashi(VSH) / Panvel (PNVL) via the proposed elevated link, where is the time slot to allow these KYN-VSH/PNVL trains to join the lines at Kalwa which already has trains running at a gap of 4 minutes. This link will lead to delays and unnecessary congestion for diversions at Kalva as no additional platforms will be made for these trains and will have to use the same 4 platforms used by TNA-KYN lines. (Please note : During the addition of 2 new lines between TNA-DW, 2 platforms for fast track are being built at Kalva and Mumbra). Building an elevated link will have to displace a lot of slums and rehabilitation of Project Affected Persons (PAP) and clearing some private property of title deeds will be a costly affair and might have to face PILs by PAPs.

I would like to propose a cheaper, easier and faster solution as “doubling” of the single line arm which divulges from the Mail/Express lines at PSK South Exit to connect with the THB lines on the already existing triangle and route the KYN-VSH/PNVL trains via the PSK Tunnel to have its first stop after Airoli at DW, Pf 3 & 4 which can be easily made EMU commuter friendly by raising its height and providing passenger amenities which it is currently devoit of. An additional platform can be made at Kopar between the 5^th and 6^th line to cater to these trains as there is enough space on Kopar East to slew the 6^th track to make way for the new island platform. This new platform can cater to the rush of Dombivli city as Dombivli Railway station cannot be expanded further for new platforms for lack of space. Kalyan has vast tracts of land on its east side which can be used to build an additional island platform 8 and 9 for smoother operation of new trains as well as the Mail/Express trains.

The basic purpose of decongesting TNA is achieved as commuters from Kalva, Mumbra bound to VSH/PNVL will have the option of travelling to DW in a relatively empty local to board trains bound to VSH / PNVL from KYN and beyond. The best part is there are no enchroachments and railways can very well use its land to create these new connections. As the fast train corridor will be free of Mail/ Express trains, more fast trains can be introduced in CR and the KYN-VSH trains can share the 5^th, 6^th lines with Express trains as they will have an expected frequency of 1 train in 15 minutes. Sufficient slack can be provided for KYN-VSH/PNVL trains to ensure there are no inordinate delays because of sharing of lines with Mail/Expresses.

I am told by a few experts that MUTP -2 loans are sanctioned for diversifying the Mail/Express lines from the local lines hence the suggestion provided by me would be deemed to be defeating the purpose but my counter argument to them is where would they fit the KYN-VSH/PNVL locals via the elevated link at Kalva which will be already saturated with the CR mainline trains which are running at 4 min frequency. My suggestion can be easily implemented in 2 years instead of the proposed elevated link. I hope the Railway Board doesnt overlook the plan I suggested.

Demotion for a Mumbai Local over the years

                                 Today, let me bring to you the story of a Fast Local which lost out to Mail /Express over the period of time. My memory of this local goes back to when I first started working for Taj around 2005. I don't know if it existed earlier than that in any other form. Those days, I used to live in Thane (TNA) and a new path breaking fast was introduced in the early morning hours.It used to start from Thane and directly came from Kalva Car Shed (KCS) on Pf 4, fill up and leave to CST at 6:10am. The classical stops were Mulund, Ghatkopar(GC), Kurla (CLA), Dadar (DR), Byculla (BY) and finally CST. This local was designed to trail the first UP Fast of the morning from Mulund (MLND).

                                     When it was introduced, there used to be a situation at TNA when Pf 6 & 4 both had fasts towards CST in pre dawn hours. It was unfair to a lot of early morning crowd as this TNA-CST Fast never filled up to the brim as not many commuters could be found for 2 back to back fasts. The saving grace was that the First fast from Karjat (KJT) used to be invariably late on most occasions and some crowd from Pf 6 did spill over into PF4. Remember those were the days of DC Locals and Maximum Permissible Speed (MPS) was 80kmph. The schedule was to use the TNA Pf 4 South End turnout, or the MLND north end turnout and then switch to fast tracks. Since the Mail / Expresses always got precedence, and the KJT - CST Fast had to run behind it, the TNA-CST Fast was always meted a secondary treatment.

                                        

                                   Since Siddheshwar and Vidharbha and many more expresses lined up to use UP fast line,very frequently the TNA-CST fast was given the UP slow line right up to CST. It used to take 45-52 min on most days to reach CST. There have been instances of this fast taking all the turnouts available to switch to Up fast and then back to UP slow. In all those years, I had seen it use TNA south end turnouts,MLND turnouts,Vikhroli (VK) turnouts, Vidyavihar (VVH) turnouts, Matunga (MTN) turnouts, Parel (PR) turnouts and BY turnouts. It was almost impossible to predict which turnout it would take on a day, purely depended on Section Controller.

                                  The next change in Timetable(TT) saw it getting extended to Dombivli (DI) and thus the empty rake came to DI Pf 2 from KCS and it ran slow till MLND and then followed the same halt pattern.Needless to say that again there was no fastness in this. It was just a namesake fast because of the above mentioned reasons. But, more commuters started benefitting as DI to TNA slow stretch got an additional train. Now it was invariably getting to use the VVH turnouts.The death knell struck when Bhandup was added as a halt and VVH crossover was becoming more of a routine from the next TT change.

                               Finally about 3-4 years back the weird fast services on CR started, where trains began running on slow corridor till Ghatkopar (GC) and then started switching to fast track at VVH. This was yet another blow for this fast as it never got an opportunity to cross over at VVH because of incoming Mail/Expresses. Again commuter traffic on this EMU increased as now it was running slow between DI and GC.

                                    In the last Suburban TT, the fast was degraded to a slow and in the present avatar runs as 5:50 DI -CST Slow. It is no more the fast I used but, it continued to be the train I used for daily morning parallel action with M/Es. I changed jobs and now get down at GC, I changed residence to DI, but have persisted with using the same local service over the years.