Title - CR: Close Chunabhatti rail crossing during peak hours

Central Railway (CR) has renewed its appeal to the state government to close the Chunabhatti level-crossing gate during peak hours to ensure punctuality of services on Harbour line.
    A senior CR official said, “We had earlier requested the government to close the levelcrossing gate at Kurla. However, the appeal was rejected due to pressure from politicians.”
    According to CR, unless the gate is closed during the rush hour, there is no scope to run the services on time.
    An official said, “During peak hours, we run 17 services in an hour. Any delay in closing the gate affects Harbour line timetable. We have even stopped plying goods services during the day to ensure that the path is clear for Harbour line trains.”
    CR claimed that of the 40 lakh passengers on its suburban network, nearly 13 lakh use Harbour Line. “On an average, 1,000 passengers travel by Harbour line per minute. The gate remains open for six to eight minutes and eight vehicles pass through the gate per minute. However, there are times when the gate has to be kept open for 10 minutes due to heavy traffic, which results in train delays,” said the official.
    Services between Panvel and CST run on 1,500V Direct Current (DC) traction, while on Andheri-CST route, the services run on 25,000V Alternating Current (AC).
    The official said, “On Harbour line, the rake linkage is such that only AC-traction compatible trains run between CST and Andheri and DC rakes ply between CST and Panvel .”
    The official pointed out that unlike Main line and Western Railway services, which have four corridors, Harbour line has only two. Due to delays and bunching of services, overcrowding has become a serious problem in trains on Harbour line.