For the first time in a century, the Central Railway (CR) ran services on the Neral Matheran hill railway section during the monsoon by inaugurating special services between Aman Lodge and Matheran. This effort by the CR will now be replicated across other hill railways.
“Services on this line are closed for monsoon but we had been receiving requests from locals. The CR then held trials and approached the railway safety commissioner, who pointed out certain lacunae. We corrected them and the trains were approved to be run,” said Anil Jain, CR spokesperson.
They conducted 10 controllability tests for air-braked coaches. The CR will run 10 shuttle services on the 3km stretch between Aman Lodge and Matheran as well as 10 regular services between Neral and Matheran. It plans to increase the number of services after it is able to deploy more locomotives on this stretch.
The service will also help villagers living beyond Dasturi Naka, who use horses, cycles or hand-pulled carts to reach Matheran, 3km away.
