The Indian Railways on Tuesday decided to expand its local train services in Mumbai to 350 trains from Wednesday, the Union Railways Minister, Piyush Goyal announced. Recently, the railway authorities had started local train services in Mumbai after a gap of three months.
As per an official statement released by the national transporter, from July 1, Central Railways and Western Railways will begin running an additional of 150 and 148 local trains in Mumbai respectively.
“Essential staff including those of Centre, IT, defence, Raj Bhavan will be allowed on these local trains currently and with no general passengers yet,” Goyal said.
The services shall remain open only for people identified as essential staff in the city. The services can be further modified as per the demand and ensuring social distancing norms during travel.
The trains will halt at major stations only for both fast & harbour lines, and people carrying an identity card will only be allowed to board these trains.
Currently, the Indian Railways is running 200 local trains in and around Mumbai with about 130 trains running between CSMT and Kasara/Karjat/Kalyan/Dombivali/Thane on the mainline and 70 running between CSMT and Panvel on the harbour line, as specified by an official statement from the railway authorities.