Western Railway raises height of 56 platforms for passenger safety

The Western Railway recently celebrated 164th anniversary of the first train which ran between Bori Bunder and Thane on April 16, 1853.

Mumbai: The Western Railway has raised the height of 56 platforms across 28 stations on the suburban local network here as part of its ongoing efforts to increase passenger safety during train travel.

There are total of 144 platforms, whose height will be raised up to 920 mm from the current 840 mm for safety of passengers.

Of these, height of 56 platforms at 28 stations was raised in the last fiscal, a senior official said today.

Raising the height of platforms will help commuters alighting and boarding the suburban trains, he said, adding the remaining work of increasing the height of 88 platforms will be completed very soon.

Meanwhile, WR recently celebrated 164th anniversary of the first train which ran between Bori Bunder and Thane on April 16, 1853.

Highlights its achievements during the last fiscal on the occasion, WR Chief PRO Ravindra Bhakar said commissioning of new railway station 'Ram Mandir', building 10 Foot-Over-Bridges, 26 escalators and two lifts at different stations were some of the works undertaken by us.

Also, under the Digital India Mission, free Wi-Fi for passengers was started at Mumbai Central station last year in partnership with Google for the first time in the country, he said.

Such a facility has been in place at Churchgate, Dadar, Bandra, Khar Road, Bandra Terminus, Andheri, Borivali, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot and Ujjain stations.

To provide a pleasant travel experience, 67 trains were covered under "On Board House Keeping Services" and 33 more are going to be covered shortly, said the officer.

"36 stations were provided with retiring rooms. Of these, 16 stations are equipped with both retiring room and dormitory facilities," Bhakar said.

"We care for our special and differently-abled commuters and have provided low height booking windows, toilets for specially-abled, ramps, platform tiles and audio visual signages (beepers) for visually challenged passengers," he added.

WR also said it is committed to implement the schemes launched by the Centre.