Central Railway uses 10-hour block to carry out Thane-Diva line work

The Thane-Diva line

Following the completion of civil works, the first major 10-hour rail block to complete the decade-old Thane-Diva 5th and 6th line rail project was carried out on Sunday. About 300 metres of existing tracks were shifted to accommodate the new lines in what is called ‘slewing' in railway lingo.

The project is targeted for a March 2022 deadline. The cost has escalated from originally about Rs 130 crore to Rs 502 crore. Once complete, the lines will help the Central Railway add nearly 100 more local services as Diva-Thane is the busiest corridor at present. The Central Railway spokesperson said the block started at 8 am and was completed at 5:35 pm. Though the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation is undertaking the work, there was not a single official update from them about the work.

CR officials said five automatic track vehicle machines were used for the rail block to speed up the work. "Work will be continuing at many stretches between Diva and Thane throughout Diwali and Christmas as per availability of time and will likely continue till early 2022," said the spokesperson.

Sanctioned in 2008, the 9-km project is a part of Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP 2B) and is crucial for CR as it will be a key factor in segregating the outstation and local train rail corridor and thus improve the speed/frequency of trains. The first deadline was December 2015, which was later revised to December 2017, then to March 2019, June 2020 and now to next March.