Central Railway to operate 27-hour block between CSMT and Byculla | So Good News

The Central Railway has planned a 27-hour traffic closure between Byculla and CSMT on Sunday for the dismantling of the century-old Carnac bunder road over the bridge. As per the proposal sent to the railway board by CR, the block will start on Saturday evening around 11 pm and compete on Sunday evening. During the block period, several special local services will be operated from Byculla and Dadar on the main line and from Wadala on the harbor line.

As per the proposal submitted to the Railway Board by CR, all slow and fast local services on the main line will be suspended between CSMT and Byculla for 17 hours. Similarly, local services on the harbor line will not be available between CSMT and Wadala for 21 hours and operation of long distance trains between CSMT and Byculla will be suspended for 27 hours.

Confirming the development, a senior CR officer said, “As of now, we are planning to operate 27 hour block between CSMT and Byculla on coming Sunday, but the block will be operated only after the final nod from the railway board.”

According to a senior railway officer, several long-distance trains connecting to the other railway zones of the Indian Railways are operated from CSMT and hence the block will be operated only after a green signal from the Railway Board.

The demolition work of the Carnac bridge is ongoing since the last week of August “Concrete and other lighter parts of the bridge have already been removed under the proposed block, the entire steel structure will be removed using cranes.”

The bridge is located between CSMT and Masjid Bunder stations and passes over CR railway tracks.

Heavy vehicles were banned on the bridge, which is between CSMT and Masjid Road stations, since November 2013, after the steel structure corroded. In 2018, IIT-Bombay conducted a safety audit and recommended that the bridge be closed and rebuilt. Complete closure of the bridge was announced by the city traffic police in August 2022, after the demolition work of the bridge was started by the railways.