Mumbai train accident: Why travelling on a local along Diva-Mumbra-Kalwa has always been traumatic

However, when some people on the coach ahead started looking behind, near our coach, I peeked down too and saw a young college student, his bag still on his shoulders, lying unconscious near the railway tracks on which our train was standing. I don’t know to this day whether he was unconscious or worse, but the image sent a chill down my spine.

I was sure that he, much like me or the several others who got into the train at stations just ahead of Thane railway station, namely Kalwa, Mumbra, Diva, must have been hanging on the footboard when some minor push would have caused him to lose balance. Several of these trains on the Central Railway line come from far-off distances, at times beyond 50 km, and get partly empty at Thane railway station.

However, as one comes closer to Thane railway station, getting a place to stand on the train – or even just getting in – progressively gets difficult and the worst plight is that of commuters on the last stretch of the Kalwa-Mumbra-Diva stations that come just before the Thane station. For them, it is like a survival game till the train reaches Thane.

The only way to get in is to stand on the footboard and somehow hold on to life till Thane, where a large crowd would finally get off. Then, if one is truly lucky, one could get a seat as well and travel till the final station of CSMT, like I did.

Getting in at Mumbra is marginally better than doing so at Kalwa, where it is almost impossible to board, and there is a major hurdle in the form of a tunnel along the route.

At times, the gap between the tunnel wall and the person hanging from the train, after trying to push himself inside the coach, is hardly a few inches. Apart from this major obstacle, there are poles or trees along the railway tracks that one could brush against, if the train is very crowded.

At times, commuters would be kind enough to squeeze themselves inside the train to ensure that those on the footboard are safe. If ever there was a fight between two commuters on a train, others would be scared as a little shove could lead to a ripple effect that could cause the person on the edge of the footboard to lose his/her balance. I wonder if a similar situation led to the college boy lying on the side of the track.

The train passed, and I hoped that the boy somehow survived the fall and was rescued. But somewhere deep inside, I promised myself to take as little risk as possible and started skipping more trains than I used to do earlier. Some people would even travel in the opposite direction and then go to Diva or further to have a better chance at securing a safer spot on the train.

There have been numerous protests and rail roko stirs by Diva residents asking for some trains to originate from their station. As recently as August last year, railway passengers in Diva carried out protests as there was no progress in their demands seeking trains originating from the station, despite submitting a memorandum with 10,000 signatures in 2022 to then chief minister Eknath Shinde. A social worker from Diva had also planned to go on a fast-unto-death for a solution to the demand.

On Monday, when news broke out regarding the death of five passengers in an accident involving commuters travelling precariously, the trauma of holding on to dear life while balancing on the footboard all these years ago came rushing back as if it was yesterday. Hope this finally nudges the authorities to do something for commuters on the stretch for whom daily travel is a forced misadventure that could cost them their lives.