The Central Railway (CR) will partially commission the ghat section on the Mumbai-Pune railway corridor after nearly 12 days and will begin running a few services on Friday. The rail link between Maharashtra’s two biggest cities was disrupted after the areas between Karjat and Lonavala received very heavy showers on August 3 and August 4.
On Friday, the CR will be running the Sinhagad Express from Mumbai to Pune and Pune to Mumbai. It will run the Deccan Queen from Mumbai to Pune, while the Intercity Express and Indrayani Express will ply from Pune to Mumbai. The CR will also be running the Hussain Sagar Express between Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Officials said only two lines on ghat section have been made operational and heavy speed restrictions have been imposed. The section has three lines: Up (towards Mumbai), Down (towards Pune) and Middle.
“The Middle and the Down line have been restored. However, we will constantly monitor the situation over the next few weeks to see if any issues crop up. The aim is to commission the Up line by August 20,” an official said.
All three lines were crippled by a series of boulder collapses and landslides. At some parts, soil from under the tracks had been washed away. While providing a crucial rail link to Pune, the corridor connects the city to other States such as Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Over 500 long-distance passenger trains have had to be cancelled leading to a revenue loss of over ₹13 crore.
While the region has been prone to boulder collapses and landslides, railway officials said the situation had never been this dire. “This has to be the longest period in the last few decades that the ghat section had to be completely shut down for so many days,” an official said.
