WR will manage 150 additional locals for essential staff from Monday

Western Railway (WR) has decided to operate 150 additional local train services for essential workers from Monday. Of these, 59 services will operate during peak hours. WR currently runs 350 local services per day for essential workers. Sumit Thakur, Director of Public Relations, WR, said: “We will be running an additional 150 local services per day from September 21 so that
Central Railway (CR) has operated 355 local train services in recent months. When asked if they had any plans to increase the number of services, an RC official replied: “We are observing the situation”. A source told Mirror that during a recent meeting between officials from Mumbai’s CR division and the state government’s disaster management unit, CR officials said they were ready to add more local services if requested by the government. After being completely closed in the early days of the lockdown, local trains resumed operations for essential workers – as defined by the government – in mid-June. WR initially operated 162 services per day, while CR operated 200. On June 29, WR added 40 more services. A bigger increase came two days later, on July 1, when CR added 150 more services and WR added 148, bringing their respective totals to 355 and 350.
Meanwhile, MP for Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) Kshitij Thakur asked
Data from WR showed that 33.75 lakh passengers traveled on their local trains from June 15 to September 17, including 2.28 lakh on September 17 alone. WR earned Rs 344.35 lakh during this period. Normally, WR runs 1,367 local services per day and CR 1,774, serving around 80 lakh passengers per day.
Many essential workers who travel by local train have told the Mirror that maintaining social distancing has been a challenge because – despite restrictions on who can travel – most trains are overcrowded, particularly during peak hours. One, a BEST employee who lives in Virar, said: ‘Conditions in Churchgate fasting were very bad on Friday morning. The train was packed and no one could practice social distancing.’
The situation is the same in CR locals. An employee of