Western Railway on Thursday announced that the south-side staircase of the 2nd north-most Foot Over Bridge (FOB) at platforms 6 and 7 of Vasai Road station will be dismantled on August 29, Friday night.
In an official statement, the Western Railway said that the closure of the FOB is part of the ongoing station improvement work, under which foundation work for an elevated deck is being carried out.
“The passengers are advised to use the north-side staircase of the 2nd north FOB and the south-side staircase of the existing north FOB,” the statement said.
Western Railway expresses regret for the inconvenience caused to commuters, it said.
Railways to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with more coaches on 7 routes amid rising demand
The Railway Board has decided to upgrade Vande Bharat trains with additional coaches on seven operational routes after evaluating high passenger occupancy, according to officials.
These seven routes are Mangaluru Central-Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad-Tirupati, Chennai Egmore-Tirunelveli, Madurai-Bengaluru Cantt, Deoghar-Varanasi, Howrah-Rourkela and Indore-Nagpur.
The released trains will also be introduced on some other new routes.
The officials said that at present, four 8-coach (also called car) and three 16-coach Vande Bharat trains are operational on these routes.
“The 16-car train will be upgraded to 20-car and those having 8-car will be increased to 16-car,” Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information and Publicity, Railway Board, said.
“Based on occupancy for Financial Year 2025-26 (up to July 31) and feasibility for augmentation, a tentative augmentation of three 16-car Vande Bharat train services with 20-car and four 8-car Vande Bharat train with 16-car has been planned,” he added.
The Board officials said that besides these upgrades, more 20-car Vande Bharat trains will be ready for launches and one 16-car train will be available for augmentation.
“A tentative replacement plan for the Vande Bharat train service is planned based on occupancy. After this, the released rakes (trains) of 16-car and 8-car will be utilised for running new services,” Kumar said.
As per the scheduled upgradation, three routes, Mangaluru Central-Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad-Tirupati, Chennai Egmore-Tirunelveli, which have at present 16-car Vande Bharat, will be upgraded to 20-car, and the remaining four routes having 8-car Vande Bharat service will get 16-car trains.
