London mayor gets a feel of local flavour

Ken Livingstone gets what he wanted: A journey experience amid the ‘super dense crush crowd’ between Bandra and Churchgate

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on Wednesday rubbed shoulders with the average Mumbaikar when he boarded a suburban local from Bandra to Churchgate.

His desire to get a first-hand experience of the city’s lifeline was fulfilled when he reached Bandra station at 3.12 pm to board the 3.27 pm fast local.

At first he was stunned to find the station so crowded even during an off-peak hour.

“We had cleared one portion of the bridge to get him comfortably to platform no 5. He was absolutely astonished. It was only when he reached the platform that he started waving at the people,” said a senior railway official who had accompanied the mayor.

“I have the same feeling as I had when I won the elections in London,” said the mayor.
While trying to know more about the city’s rail network, Livingstone also posed for photographers who remained dissatisfied till the end.

“How many people travel daily on the suburban train? We have nearly four million travelling daily by our rail system,” Livingstone told the railway officials.

He was amazed to learn that over 6.3 million people use the train service daily.

“Livingstone wanted to experience the ‘super dense crush crowd’ in Mumbai trains himself rather than just rummaging through the statistics given by government officials. He wanted to experience travel woes of an average Mumbaikar,” said an official from the London mayor’s India office.

But daily Mumbaikars travelling on the same train, same compartment criticised the ‘drill’ as it had inconvenienced them.

“If he wanted to get a feel of dense crowd he should have ideally tried to board the train during morning or evening peak hours. Would his trip yield us any positive results?” questioned Shirish Kolte a commuter.

The train that left at 3.27 pm from Bandra halted at Dadar but the police  did not allow new passengers to enter the first-class compartment.

“It was a formidable journey,” said Peter Handy, London transport commissioner. He was all praises for the ventilation and the indicators installed on the new rake which make travelling ‘a lot more easy’.