Western Railway Resumes Services For Essential Service Staff
Some local trains in Mumbai have resumed their services from today, June 15. On these trains, no general passenger will be allowed to travel, as the services have been resumed for essential service staff only.
The Western Railways on Sunday tweeted that they will resume their services from Monday, 15th June 2020 with some decided protocols and SOPs in place. The Maharashtra government and the Western Railways have identified that after the resumption of local train services, more than 1.2 lakh essential staffs are likely to travel on the Mumbai local trains. The Western Railways have decided to run 73 pairs of suburban trains which include 8 pairs between Virar station and Dahanu Road station.
Rules For Travelling On Local Trains
The Western Railways will run selected suburban trains on the main line and the harbour line from 5:30 am to 11:30 pm with an interval of 15 minutes. For entering the railway station for travelling, passengers will have to show their id cards to prove that they are essential services staff under the government.
To avoid the crowd and maintain social distancing, local trains will carry only 700 passengers, normally, a Mumbai local train has a capacity of carrying 1,200 passengers. This morning, the first Western line train from the Virar station left for the Churchgate station.
Deployment of RPF(Railway Protection Force) To Maintain Rules
The Western Railways and the state government have also deployed RPF(Railway Protection Force) to make sure that on local trains only service staff members be allowed to board during the pandemic. The Western Railways have also ordered that no hawker should be allowed inside 150 meters radius of the station.
Currently, with around 1,04,568 cases, Maharashtra has the most number of cases in India. With so many cases in Maharashtra, there is a big question - will the Mumbai Railways be able to run local trains smoothly or not?