Passengers travelling through Pune railway station on Sunday, July 5, are likely to face significant disruptions as Central Railway’s (CR’s) Pune division will undertake a special, nine-hour, traffic and power block from 8 am to 5 pm for critical infrastructure upgrades in the Pune yard. The block has been planned to facilitate engineering, signal and telecommunication (S&T), and overhead equipment (OHE) works for replacing DDS point numbers 207 and 208 and upgrading the existing 52 KG track layout to a modern 60 KG double density switch (DDS) layout in the Pune-Lonavala section.
As per the information shared by the railways, platform numbers 1 and 2 will remain unavailable for train movements from the CSMT Mumbai end, while train operations towards CSMT platform numbers 2, 3 and 4 will also be suspended during the block period. Owing to these operational restrictions, CR has announced extensive changes in train operations, including full cancellations; short terminations; short originations; and enroute regulation of several suburban, DEMU and long-distance express services.
Among the major cancellations are the Pune-Talegaon suburban services, Pune-Daund and Satara-Pune DEMU trains, along with the CSMT Mumbai-Pune Express pair (train numbers 11007 and 11008). Several suburban trains from Lonavala and Talegaon will terminate at Shivajinagar instead of Pune, while long-distance trains such as the Jaipur-Pune Express and CSMT Mumbai-Pune Express will terminate at Khadki. Trains arriving from Jammu Tawi, Amravati and Nagpur will terminate at Hadapsar, and the Baramati-Pune DEMU will terminate at Daund.
Hemant Kumar Behera, spokesperson, Pune railway division, said, “While a number of outbound trains will originate from intermediate stations instead of Pune. The Pune-Kolhapur Express will start from Satara, while the Pune-Jaipur Express and Pune-CSMT Mumbai Express will originate from Khadki after the completion of the block. The Pune-Nagpur Express will commence its journey from Hadapsar. In addition, four long-distance trains, including services to Bengaluru, Chennai, Kakinada port and Daund, will be regulated by around 30 minutes in the Lonavala-Pune section.”
Passengers have been advised to check the latest running status and revised schedules through the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) app or the Indian Railways enquiry portal before commencing their journey as operational changes may affect travel plans.
