Title - Protest Against Toy train shutdown

Angry villagers staged a rail roko and shut down shops at Matheran railway station on Monday afternoon for over three hours to protest against Central Railway (CR)'s apathy towards toy trains.Tourism in the hill station has taken a hit after some of toy train services to Matheran were cancelled last month.Around 1pm, villagers started protesting on the railway tracks and demanded a solution to technical troubles in toy train engines.The protest was called off around 4.30pm after the Central Railway DRM assured Ajay Sawant, president of Matheran Municipal Council, on phone, that he will call a high-level meeting on Tuesday to discuss the issue at his office in Mumbai. Services resumed after the assurance.Sawant said, "The livelihood of nearly 10,000 locals depends on tourism. We have held several meetings with CR officials. The DRM also visited the station but no action was taken. This led to anger among locals and we decided to stage a rail roko.""The tourist season has started but the number of visitors has reduced this year due to affected train services," Sawant added.Ramesh Patil, a villager who participated in the protest, said it has been over a month since many toy train services to Matheran were cancelled. This, he said, is causing inconvenience to tourists in reaching the hill station.VA Malegaonkar, chief public relations officer, said, "There were six locomotives for this stretch. Of this, one has been sent for period over-hauling before its scheduled date. Of the remaining five, two developed a snag due to which one service had to be cancelled. The services are expected to run normally from Tuesday."CR operates 10 services on weekends and eight on weekdays. Approximately 2,000 people travel by these toy trains every day.Matheran has been declared as an eco-sensitive region by the Union ministry of environment and forests. It is one of the few places in the world where vehicles are not allowed. Tourists can take a taxi or bus to the hill station but it costs more and people prefer the train, which takes them to the entrance of Matheran. From here, it is a 3-km walk to the main market area of the hill station.