Mumbai’s Hancock Bridge goes down

Thus during the mega block all central railway main line locals will run only till Byculla.

Mumbai: Demolition work of Mumbai’s Hancock bridge has begun today.

In a bid to dismantle more than Centurian old Hancock road overbridge at Sandhurst Road station, the Central Railway will operate a traffic block from 0020 hrs on Saturday night to 1820 hr Sunday evening.

All CST-bound suburban services would be terminated at Byculla station and then depart from there, the statement said, adding that total 150 suburban and 42 mail and express trains will remain cancelled today, tomorrow and on Sunday. As a result, speed restriction had been imposed for trains passing below the bridge and this affected punctuality.

Mid-day was the first to report way back in April 2014 about this bridge being demolished in the article ‘135-year-old piece of Mumbai history to be demolished’. A lot of long distance trains moving to and from CST during the period of the block will stand cancelled. A railway officer said that the harbour and trans-harbour lines will be operating as per their normal weekly schedule, instead of the Sunday schedule (which has lesser number of trains), to handle the increased number of passengers along those routes due to the block.

Morning DOWN locals from 04.12 hrs will run Ex Byculla / Dadar /Kurla.

Suburban services will remain suspended between CST and Byculla from 00.20 hrs to 18.30 hrs.

To carry out maintenance work of tracks, signaling & overhead equipments, a major block will be undertaken between Goregaon and Borivali stations from 10.35 hrs to 15.35 hrs on Sunday i.e.10th January, 2016 on UP & DOWN Through (i.e. Fast) lines. It will run upto Byculla only. Also, about 100 local trains running on the central line will stay cancelled. The idea is to convenience commuters of outstation trains some of which would be given an unscheduled halt at Thane during the block hours.