CR and WR shut down over 240 level crossing gates in a year

This level crossing at Kharegaon railway phatak at Kalwa has been done away with. File pic

A record 248 level crossing gates on the Central Railway and Western Railway were closed in a year to speed up trains. Level crossing gates have been the biggest bane for the railways leading to train detentions and delays.

"Central Railway has notched up its best ever performance in the elimination of 90 manned level crossings in 2021-22 by construction of road overbridges/road underbridges and limited height subways in their place. Of the 90, Mumbai division has done away with six, Bhusaval division 33, Nagpur 20, Pune 20 and Solapur 11. About 78 such gates had been eliminated in 2020-21," Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

"On Western Railway, 113 manned level crossing gates have been eliminated on broad gauge routes, which is the highest among all zonal railways. The target of 112 was achieved in the month of February itself. Out of total 113 level crossing gates eliminated, 38 were eliminated from the national Golden Quadrilateral route which is again the highest ever. In addition to this, 45 level crossing gates (manned/unmanned) have been eliminated from meter gauge and narrow gauge routes. Hence, WR has eliminated a total of 158 level crossings during 2021-22," Western Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Sumit Thakur said.

Rs 19.3 cr from the ticketless

With a strength of more than 2,100 ticket checking staff, the Western Railway recovered R19.35 crore from about 2.96 lakh cases of ticketless traveling and unbooked luggage cases in the month of March 2022.

Elaborating on their earlier performance, Thakur said, "During the checks conducted from April 2021 to March 2022, about 18.87 lakh cases of ticketless/irregular travel including unbooked luggage cases were detected, resulting in recovery of Rs 113.57 crore."