Work begins to fence off tracks at Mumbai local stations

A simple steel fence is expected to save lives on the city’s railway tracks. Following the rise in the number of deaths due to commuters trespassing on its railway tracks, the Central Railway (CR) had decided to erect steel fences between the tracks at stations between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and Kurla to prevent accidents.

The railways have been estimated to have spent more than Rs2 crore for fencing. A senior official said that the fences will be erected at all stations and will plug all the open gaps from where commuters jump onto the tracks. The fences will not just cover the entire length of the platform but stretch out further to make crossing the tracks more tedious for trespassers.

The idea to put up fences so that crossing tracks would become an inconvenient option for commuters was originally the idea of former railway minister Mamata Banerjee.

The idea is to encourage the use of foot overbridges. The fences that will be placed between the tracks will be around three feet high and at certain places they will be more than eight feet high so that it is not easy to jump over them,’’ added the senior official.

Trespassing has been a major worry for the railways and the number of deaths on the city’s rail lines per year has crossed the 4,000 mark. Although the CR has been running awareness campaigns regarding this issue, at many places, railway employees are themselves seen crossing tracks near railway colonies.

Besides building walls and putting up steel fences, there are also plans to cut down slopes at platform ends so that it becomes difficult for commuters to jump onto the railway tracks.