Mumbai Nearly 300 local trains canceled on Saturday: Know why

Mumbai’s suburban rail network will see massive disruption over the weekend as both Western Railways and Central Railways undertake major infrastructure and maintenance work, leading to cancellation, diversion and suspension of local train services.

On Western Railway, infrastructure upgrades aimed at increasing local train capacity are underway as part of the Kandivali-Borivali Sixth Line Extension Project, which began on December 20 and will continue till January 18. Vineet Abhishek, Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railways, said that during this period, on an average 70 to 80 local trains will be canceled every day.

Due to major technical works like line linking and electronic interlocking at Borivali, cancellations will be quite high on December 27 and 28, affecting 296 and 235 trains respectively. He said these blocks have been planned on weekends to reduce inconvenience to passengers. Once completed, the project will provide a dedicated track for mail and express trains and enable more frequent and timely local services.

As part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, a separate sixth line is being laid to separate suburban and long distance trains. Western Railway operates over 1,400 suburban local trains daily between Churchgate and Dahanu covering a distance of over 125 kilometres.

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