The Central Railway (CR) has made it clear, very loudly, too, that they will not get the 15 Mumbai-Pune trains back on track soon even though it might mean inconveniencing lakhs of commuters. But, what bothers commuters more is why the CR chooses to operate this way even after spending crores of rupees on developing the section.

To make it seem like the situation isn't that bad, CR plans to add two halts on the Deccan Queen route at Dadar and Thane in the Pune direction and at Karjat and Thane in the CSMT direction from July 26 to August 9. Also, four trains have been provided with additional coaches for the same period. The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation, too, has arranged for 180 additional buses on the Mumbai-Thane-Pune route and 24 Shivneri buses to counter the problem.

A CR official said, "The Mumbai division has already removed more than 700 boulders from vulnerable spots and has also set up a special type of Canadian fence within a radius of 650 metres of these spots to prevent boulders from falling on the tracks." He said in addition to this, tunnel portal extension was done at four places and rock bolting for 750 square metres of boulders.