It’s that time of the year again when Mumbai’s major railway stations turn into sprawling camp grounds. With families spread out on floors, bundles of luggage doubling up as pillows, and food packets being shared over newspapers, the festive special season has transformed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT), Dadar, Kalyan, Mumbai Central and Bandra Terminus into makeshift tent towns on rails.
“As lakhs of passengers prepare to head home for Diwali and Chhath Puja, Central Railway (CR) has rolled out 1198 special trains to tackle the rush. Our people are monitoring everywhere and arranged additional services. We have created holding areas at Mumbai CSMT, Kurla LTT, Dadar, and Kalyan,” CR General Manager Vijay Kumar said.
“More than 70,000 passengers have used the special trains in the past five days. We have also doubled the capacity of holding areas at stations this time. There are two holding areas, one with a capacity to accommodate 1000 and another, 500,” Western Railway (WR) General Manager Vivek Kumar Gupta said.
“People arrive hours before departure to secure a spot,” said an RPF constable at CSMT. “By evening, it looks like an encampment — luggage, food, blankets, children — everything laid out.” “It’s like a mela ground before departure — children sleeping under banners, mothers guarding luggage, men huddled over thermos flasks of tea,” said a senior CR official, watching the scene.
Holiday specials
Indian Railways is operating more than 12,000 trips of holiday special trains this festive season. WR alone is running over 2400 trips, with nearly 80 pairs of special trains, mostly north-bound. Of these, 1586 trips originate from Gujarat, 738 from Maharashtra, and 90 from Madhya Pradesh, including around 50 unreserved specials.
At Bandra Terminus, WR has set up a temporary 350-sq-m holding area (capacity: 450 passengers) and a permanent 702-sq-m one (capacity: 1000 passengers), both equipped with fans, lighting, and a public announcement system. From October 15 to 21, around 70,000 passengers departed from the terminus alone. Across the WR network, war rooms have been activated for 24×7 crowd monitoring, while CCTV systems are being closely watched to ensure safety.
At CSMT, a 1200-sq-m holding area has been set up, large enough to hold over 1000 passengers at a time. The space, lined with steel barricades and benches, resembles a temporary shelter more than a waiting room. Similar scenes unfold at LTT, where crowds bound for Patna, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi spill into the new waiting enclosures. Dadar and Kalyan stations, too, have been given extra queue lanes and shaded holding zones to handle the swelling numbers.
CR has already completed 705 trips, ferrying 10.68 lakh passengers, with another 493 trips planned in the coming weeks. The trains — mostly bound for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — make up over 85 per cent of the total festive demand. “It’s chaos, but it’s also community,” said another railway official. “Every year, Mumbai stations become homes — just temporary ones — for those on their way home.”
Facts and figures
CENTRAL RAILWAY
(As of October 21, 2025)
Total trips planned: 1998 (up + down)
Trips completed: 705
Trips pending: 1293
Passengers carried (completed trips): 10.68 lakh
Projected passengers (pending trips): 20 lakh
Total passengers (projected): 30.68 lakh
WESTERN RAILWAY
Western Railway is running more than 2400 trips with almost 80 pairs of special trains to meet the festive season rush. Most of the special trains are northbound.
1586 trips from Gujarat
738 trips from Maharashtra
90 trips from Madhya Pradesh.
Total no of unreserved special trains
13 fully unreserved holiday special trains (with almost 50 trips) were run by WR — two from Bandra Terminus, one from Valsad, three from Udhna, two from Pratapnagar, and five from Ahmedabad/Sabarmati.
