Subodh Jain,general manager,Central Railways,on Monday said that lack of sufficient infrastructure at the Pune railway station has resulted in Pune getting a raw deal in terms of starting new trains in the recent railway budget. Jain,however,stressed that there were many indirect allocation for the Pune divison of the Central Railways that would help the much-needed infrastructure upgradation. Jain was speaking at the foundation day celebration of Indian Railways Institute of Civil Engineering (IRICEN),Pune,a centralised training institute under the Ministry of Railways which provides training to the civil engineering officers working with the Indian Railways. Most of the lines where new trains were started are new or have comparatively low traffic. Apart from Pune,several other cities like Kolkata,Patna also did not get a good number of new trains and there are several factors responsible for this. In Pune,we do not have the infrastructure to deal with the increased traffic. So long as this capacity is not increased it would be very difficult to operate new trains, Jain said. Jain argued that though Pune commuters were not satisfied with the budget,it has a lot of provisions that would help the city in the long run. Pune division was given a new line between Pune and Nashik,Rs 2.5-3 crore have been allotted for the new divisional office,about Rs 4 crore for an additional track from Pune Station to Ghorpadi,Rs 6.5 crore have been allotted for new building of IRICEN that is being constructed in Koregaon. It is like,if somebody needs an access to food grains,first,he must get a ration card. In this budget Pune has got a ration card. Other things will follow, Jain said,adding that the work on the additinal line between Pune station and Ghorpadi would be completed in a month. Currently we are not able to use the Ghorpadi plant to its full capacity. Once the extra line is operational we would be able to vacate the passengers at Pune Station and immediately send the trains for washing to the Ghorpadi plant, Jain said. One-third local trains to operate from Shivajinagar station soon Pune: Subhodh Jain,General Manager,Central Railway on Monday said about one third of local trains operating between Pune and Lonavala would be terminated at Shivajinagar station from mid-April. He said the time saved due to the termination of the locals at Shivajinagar could be used for making additional trips. Schedule of the Pune-Lonavala local will also undergo a change. The plans to terminate local trains at Shivajinagar were first declared by Jain in his earlier visit to the city a few months ago. We will be terminating local trains from Lonavala at Shivajinagar itself. New schedule for the operations of the trains is being worked out and would be implemented within 15-20 days on an experimental basis. The permanent schedule would only be decided after getting a feedback from passengers, Jain said. According to a survey carried out by railway authorities,most of the passengers in Pune-Lonavala trains de-board at Talegaon. Considering this,Jain said,terminating some locals in Talegaon is also being considered. He said while changing the schedule it would be ensured that timing of locals operating in peak hours are not affected. A change of 2-3 minutes would be made in the peak hours if necessary. Timings of locals operating in lean hours can undergo a change of 15-20 minutes, Jain added. Jain also said that to increase operational speed of the trains,attaching additional motor coaches is being considered. At present,each local train comprise of 12 coaches and three motor coaches. If one motor coach is added to every train it would increase the speed and will make the service more reliable, Jain said.
