The Indian Railways have decided to work in totality and integrate their big ticket rail projects keeping in mind the several Metro rails coming across the city and its metropolitan region. However, there are chances that the Rs 19,500 crore Bandra-Virar elevated corridor could be shelved as the state government is coming up with a network of Metro rail lines.

On November 29, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal held a meeting at Breach Candy Hospital and later in Churchgate with the Railway officials. Sources said that the minister has asked for a holistic plan that would integrate different modes of transport in the near future. Goyal had already showed his displeasure at a meeting on September 29, over the Bandra-Virar elevated corridor due to its high cost.

“The minister asked us to prepare a comprehensive plan involving both rail and Metro projects so that only relevant projects can be implemented and can make optimum utilisation of funds and resources,” said a senior railway official on condition of anonymity.

There are at least five new Metro rail lines planned in Mumbai and its metropolitan region including Andheri (E)-Dahisar (E) and Colaba-Bandra-Charkop for which work has started.

The railways have proposed the need for further expansion with 5th and 6th rail line son Borivali-Virar route. This shall mainly segregate the long-distance trains with the suburban system, thus allowing capacity addition of suburban locals. Already, the Harbour line is being extended from Andheri till Goregaon — which is expected to be ready soon — and further till Borivli.

Months after enabling high-speed internet access at more than 200 railway stations in India, Google is now in plans to expand Google Station to various cities across the country. Caesar Sengupta of Google’s Next Billion Users (NBU) division on Tuesday asserted the success of the public Wi-Fi programme while addressing the audience at Google for India 2017 in New Delhi. The programme was piloted in the country back in January last year.

Sengupta, the Vice President of Product Management and NBU at Google, revealed that there are over 7.5 million users leveraging high-speed internet access through the Google Station programme in India. The programme provides Internet to 227 stations in the country, with 22 stations are going live by this month, the executive said. With this achievement, the search giant is on track to connect all 400 stations next year that was planned late last year.

“Google Station is helping connect more people to affordable and reliable Internet. Public Wi-Fi hotspots, we believe, are the internet cafe of the mobile generation – a daily place where you go to get high-quality internet to download videos and apps,whatever you choose to do. And even with the amazing progress on expanding mobile Internet in India, we are still finding that public Wi-Fi remains a crucial step in getting high-quality affordable internet to everyone,” Sengupta said, adding, “And now Google Station is expanding outside of railway stations, into cities and other countries like Indonesia.”

Google launched Google Station at 53 railway stations in the country in September and had originally planned to scale up the public Wi-Fi network to 100 stations by the end of 2016. However, after hitting the mark of 100 stations in December, the search giant expanded its focus and set to add as many as 400 stations by 2018.

Alongside railway stations, Google is now in plans to enable high-speed public Wi-Fi through Google Station in Indian cities.

A source familiar with the development told Gadgets 360 that the company was looking to power Internet access at various smart cities in the country.

Google is currently in partnership with the government’s enterprise RailTel Corporation to provide fast Internet access on mobile devices through Google Station. However, with the expansion of the programme, the Sundar Pichai-led team is also planning to tie up with new ISPs. The source confirmed Gadgets 360 that the company is also set to expand the reach of Google Station to educational institutions and universities in the coming future.

In August, Google Station entered Indonesia to help improve access to the internet at local railway stations. Google partnered with CBN and Fiberstar to bring high-speed public Wi-Fi for Indonesian users.

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An intercity train ran over five women here early on Monday morning, four of whom died on the spot, prompting a protest by the locals that disrupted traffic for a few hours, a senior police official said.

The incident took place around 6 am near the Adalpur Halt when the women were crossing the tracks on their way home after taking bath at a nearby ghat, Munger Superintendent of Police Ashish Bharti said.

They might have failed to notice the approaching Bhagalpur-Danapur Intercity train due to heavy morning fog, the SP said.
“Four of them died on spot and another received serious injuries. The injured woman was taken to the Munger Sadar Hospital,” he said.

Enraged over the incident, people from a nearby village gathered at the spot and squatted on the tracks, preventing the bodies from being removed, Bharti said, adding that train services were disrupted for a few hours.
Jamalpur SP (railway) Shankar Jha said services were restored around 11 am after a police team reached the spot and pacified the locals.

The Railways is looking to invest over USD 150 billion over the next five years which would help create one million additional jobs, minister Piyush Goyal has said.

Goyal, who took over as the rail minister after a Cabinet reshuffle in August, said he was trying to give the national transporter a “new direction”.

During the next five years, the Railways alone will be looking at an investment of upwards of USD 150 billion. And when I translate that into jobs, I see a million jobs being created only through investments in the railway sector,” he said.

This electrification initiative would help save the national transporter around Rs 10,000 crore per annum on fuel bill, he said.

Earlier this month, Goyal had said the Railways would create one million jobs within the next 12 months. In 2015, his predecessor Suresh Prabhu had said the Railways needed investments of Rs 8.5 trillion over the next five years, and invited overseas investors for the same.

Prabhu had also secured a debt funding worth Rs 1.5 trillion from Life Insurance Corporation to fund various projects. It is not clear whether Goyal’s USD 150 billion is part of Prabhu’s Rs 8.5 trillion investments.

After a 155 year run, a train meant exclusively for rail employees and popularly known as the ‘coolie train’, came to its final and permanent halt on Wednesday. Started by the British in 1862, the historic train has for more than one-and-a-half century, ferried workers to-and-fro from Jamalpur engine factory in Munger district.

Sources in the railways said that with expenses to run the train going up to Rs 40-50 lakh, as against a revenue of Rs 1 lakh, there were no options left but to end the service.

Meanwhile, Jamalpur rail factory employees are pressing for the factory to resume the service unless they are provided with an alternative ferry service.

While the train might have been popularly known as a ‘coolie train’, it became a lifeline to thousands living in dozens of villages on the Jamalpur–Dhanauri and Jamalpur–Sultangunj routes.

An Eastern Railways employee, Ashutosh Kumar, admitted that apart from the railway workers, locals would also board the ‘coolie train’ and stopping the service would undoubtedly cause them a major inconvenience.

Prakash, another railway employee says, the factory was founded on February 8, 1862 and since then the train has served these towns every day till now. The factory was founded by the East India Company when they were expanding their operations through the railway network.

Rakesh Kumar, the guard of ‘coolie train’, boarded it for the last time on Wednesday. He said that personally, there was a sense of loss. “I have been boarding this train for the past two years and today it feels like the foundation for these Jamalpur employees has slipped away from under their feet.”

The Indian Railways on Monday unvieled its first Shatabdi Express train with upgraded comfort, enhanced hygiene, value-added features and improved interior under its ‘Operation Swarn’ programme.

The train, which will run between Uttarakhand’s Kathgodam and New Delhi, covering a distance of 282 km, now has a complete new refurbished interior with colorful vinyl wrapped seats and on-board entertainment services like luxury trains.

The new refurbished Shatabdi Express with enhanced features will leave for Kathgodam on Tuesday morning.

The Indian Railways has upgraded the toilets with additional features such as dustbins, personal seat covers, automatic odour and hygiene control system in all coaches. (Photo: News18.com)

It has also upgraded the toilets with additional features such as dustbins, personal seat covers, automatic odour and hygiene control system in all coaches.

It has also provided disposable head rest covers in the executive class coaches.

The Operation Swarn was undertaken by the Indian Railways in June with focus on 10 key areas — punctuality, cleanliness, linen, coach interiors, toilets, catering, staff behaviour, security, entertainment, housekeeping and regular feedback.

Under this Operation Swarn, the Railways has planned to spend Rs 50 lakh on each train. The Rs 25 crore venture covers 30 trains in total – 15 Rajdhani and 15 Shatabdi Express trains.

Railway has planned to progressively upgrade all Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains of similar or higher standards by March 2018.

The fifteen Rajdhani Express that would be covered under Operation Swarn include the ones plying to Mumbai, Howrah, Bhubaneshwar, Patna and Ranchi, while the Shatabdi Expresses running between Howrah-Puri, New Delhi-Kanpur, New Delhi-Chandigarh and Howrah-Ranchi are the ones included amongst the 15 premium trains under the project.

The Western Railway (WR) today said it has taken necessary precautions and made suitable arrangements in view of the warning about cyclone Ockhi in coastal areas of Maharashtra.

The India Meteorological Department has warned of heavy rainfall in north Konkan and north Madhya Maharashtra due to the cyclone.
The WR’s engineering control has been kept on alert to keep a watch on water level over railway tracks, it said in a release here.

Similarly, RPF and commercial control staff has been asked to monitor crowd movements and undertake necessary evacuation at stations in case of a disaster-like situation, the release said.

Patrolling of the tracks has been intensified over various rail sections. The Disaster Management Cell of WR is geared up to deal with any emergency, it added.

According to the release, all emergency numbers have been updated.

“A large number of RPF and other security personnel have been deployed on crowd management and other related activities at stations, yards. Ticket checking staff have also been put on crowd management duties,” it added.

A train accident was avoided today after the driver of a Mumbai suburban train spotted iron rods on the track and managed to stop it in time.

Officials said that the incident happened at around 7:30 am. Motorman Anurag Shukla spotted two rods lying on the track and stopped the Panvel-CST train, officials said.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway police, which is investigating the incident, said it is possible that workers working along the tracks might have accidentally left the rods on the track.

An officer said there was also a chance that metal scrap thieves might have left the rod on the tracks and fled.

The officer said that a case had been registered and a team was scanning the CCTV footage to find out leads. He said that all angles, including sabotage, were being examined.