From next week, WR to carry out 35-day mega block of Goregaon-Kandivali line

Mumbai: Commuters on the Western Line will have to brace for delays and chaos as around 650 to 700 services will be cancelled during a 35-day mega block for the extension of the sixth line between Goregaon and Kandivali starting end of this month.
The officials said that work on the 4.75 km stretch will not be done during the 10-day Ganeshotsav and that they have tentatively scheduled this work from the night of August 27/28.
Unlike the work on the Santacruz-Goregaon sixth line in November last year that led to the cancellation of more than 2,500 services, this time the officials said nearly 700 train services will be impacted over the five weekends.
“We have scheduled 10-hour-long mega blocks at night, mainly on Saturdays, for five days, when we expect cancellations of 130-140 services each day. During weekdays there will be far fewer cancellations as the blocks will be up to 5 hours at night. We have tried to minimise the inconvenience caused to commuters during the rest of the period when this infrastructure upgrade will be carried out,” said a WR official.
The night block is expected to begin at 10-11pm depending on the day of the block. Sources said between September 7-17, they will not be carrying out blocks except for on September 7 at night from 10 am to 8 am.
As per the probable schedule, the five mega blocks of 10 hours will be on the 5th day, 12th day, 16th, 23rd and 30th day of the block (excluding the days during the Ganpati festival). On July 18, the Hindustan Times reported on the delays in adding two new rail lines meant for long-distance trains in the story ‘Work to add two lines on Mumbai’s Western, Central lines moving at snail’s pace’.
The rail engineers said they have already built a new rail line and platform on the west side of Malad station and to accommodate the sixth line, they will shift the tracks onto the east end by cut-and-connect method. A fifth rail line called a suburban track avoiding (STA) line for long-distance trains exists on the Santacruz-Borivali route.
As per the plans, this new rail line will be converted into a slow line for Virar bound trains, the existing Virar bound Slow line will then be used for Churchgate bound Slow trains. The existing Slow line for Churchgate bound trains will cater to Virar bound Fast trains, the tracks used by Virar bound fast line will then cater to Churchgate bound fast trains, the Fast line to Churchgate will be the 5th line and the STA line will be the 6th line.
This work will then commission the segregation of rail tracks for long-distance trains on the Goregaon-Kandivali route. Sources said the balance work on the Kandivali – Borivali corridor will be ready by December. In November 2023, WR successfully completed phase one of the project on the sixth line on the Santacruz-Goregaon corridor. The need for extending the sixth line till Borivali assumes importance because it will ensure that long-distance trains stay away from the fast lines of suburban rail.
With buildings and railway residential quarters, sources said slums and other soft structures close to the tracks especially on stretches of Malad-Kandivali-Borivali will be removed. On the Goregaon-Malad stretch, the authorities cleared grass and weeds, levelled the ground, and laid rail tracks for this work.
BOX:
Cost of Mumbai Central – Borivali 5-6 lines: ₹918 crore
August 2024: Work on 6th line on Goregaon-Kandivali to be completed
December 2024: Work on 6th line on Borivali-Goregaon to be completed
Work first started: 2008