July 30: Central and Western Railways have nothing new to offer to suburban railway passengers. In the latest time table slated to hit the stands soon, no services have been added in either sections, except for a few changes in timings of some trains.While the WR has will operate its Goregaon-Churchgate local on Sundays also, the CR has tried to "rationalise" its peak hour services.For daily commuters from Thane, the rationalisation will bring a dedicated CST local at a frequency of five minutes, especially during three peak hours beginning 7.45 am. This, according to a spokesperson, will also increase the railways' punctuality standards.The spokesperson further informed that for the three peak hours in the morning and three in the evening, passengers to Thane will have a train service every five minutes and will include the 9-car and the 12-car services, fast and slow services.Similar system will also be tried on the Harbour section with trains leaving from main stations like Khandeshwar, Belapur, Vashi among others at a fixed frequency for stations like Bandra, Andheri and CST. However, such services will not be made available to the passengers who travel from beyond Thane for the time being, the official said. On the WR, due to the change in the Golden Temple mail departure schedule, timings of four locals have been changed to make way for the express train without being delayed.Addressing newsmen on Wednesday afternoon, N Krithivasan, General Manager, WR, said they intend adding three new 12-car rakes by the end of September this year. This will increase the number of existing 12-car services to 180 per day.
