RAILWAY SAMACHAR

40 NEW SUBURBAN SERVICES ANNOUNCED BY
GENERAL MANAGER, WR ON REPUBLIC DAY

MUMBAI : The dawn of 59th anniversary of Republic Day of our nation was marked on Western Railway with flag hoisting by Shri R.N. Verma, General Manager, Western Railway. Keeping with the motto of caring for its customers and providing with more comforts, General Manager announced the introduction of 40 new suburban services from 26th January, 2009. 23 new suburban services were introduced in November 2008, thus taking it to 63 new suburban services this financial year. Every effort is being taken by WR to ease the load on trains on Borivali – Virar sector and this is one step to provide relief to the commuters of this sector. Virar sector services, have thus gone up from 370 to 402. Renewal of Season tickets through Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) and Ticketing through Mobile are likely to be introduced within this financial year. In our continuous endeavour to improve passenger services, current All India Radio news is being relayed during the journey of Rajdhani Express trains since August 2008. A new initiative of sending updated rail related information via SMSs has been found very useful by railway users and 56000 persons have signed up for this service.
Recalling duty of railwaymen towards the country and reviewing Railway’s performance during the year, General Manager in his address expressed how the cash strapped Indian Railways is now a cash surplus organisation, due to the visionary policies of Hon’ble Minister for Railways, Shri Lalu Prasad.
Shri Verma highlighted that Western Railway being one of the important Zonal Railways of the Indian Railways has been giving significant contribution in all the areas of railway activities including freight and passenger business. WR has achieved a freight traffic loading of 36.66 million tonnes up to December which is approximately 14.5% more than the corresponding period of last year. He also added that there has been a growth of 26% over last year, up to December, in respect of freight traffic earnings. On the passenger side also, the earnings have grown by 11%. 929 Holiday Specials have been run and about 7000 extra coaches attached in different trains and 6 new trains have been introduced up till now.
On the construction front, various projects have been completed like the Gauge Conversion of Pratapnagar – Dabhoi line and Mahesana – Patan and new line of Veraval – Somnath. An additional pair of passenger trains between Pratapnagar – Dabhoi is introduced from 26th January 2009. The works introduced in the current budget are Gauge Conversion of Ratlam – Indore – Khandwa and Ahmedabad – Udaipur lines and doubling of Udhna – Jalgaon section.
Emphasising on the safety and security of its public, Shri Verma said that a foolproof security system is provided to the rail users. CCTVs have been installed at 38 stations and are under commission at 13 other stations. Quick Response Teams (QRTs) equipped with metal detectors, dog squads and superior INSAS rifles have been deployed over Western Railway. One Bomb Disposal Unit in each division is under the process of being set up soon.
He also lauded the sports performance of WR sportspersons and took the opportunity to thank the unions for their role in fostering cordial relations.
Shri Verma concluded that he was confident that all railwaymen would continue to strive hard to improve the performance of this Railway and keep its flag flying high and thus play a significant role in nation building.