Western Railway plans to extend harbour line till Borivli by taking drone & geotechnical survey of the route.

In 2020, Western Railway will conduct a drone survey to stretch the Goregaon-Borivli Harbor Line, paving the way for more trains and increasing capacity.

In the context of the Mumbai Urban Transportation Project (3A), Harbour line services were extended till Goregaon in April 2018.

A senior WR said, “We had a pre-bid meeting on Wednesday with prospective bidders that will be appointed to serve as consultants. The consultants will be responsible for the preparation of the detailed project report (DPR). Apart from taking drone survey, it will perform a geotechnical survey of the path, to demarcate the actual alignment.”

It is anticipated that the 7 km long corridor would cost Rs 826 crore. “The survey will take at least 8 months, after which proposals would be accepted to construct the corridor,” an official said.

Ravinder Bhakar, WR’s chief public relations officer said: “We can also use this extended network to run more Churchgate-Borivli services besides CSMT to Borivli trains.”

This proposed Harbor corridor extension will be at grade level except for Malad location, where, due to space constraints, it will take the elevated route.

CR is now operating only one train CSMT-Borivli. Travellers from Malad and Borivli have to change trains from Goregaon to get to Harbor line. Direct connectivity will provide them with a major advantage.

WR is considered one of the world’s most congested suburban networks. It consists of four lines between Mumbai Central and Churchgate and five between Santacruz-Borivli and Mumbai Central-Mahim. After four years, development of these new lines will ensure that between Bandra and Borivli there are at least 8 lines.

Harbor line extension to Borivli is made possible because railway authorities have shelved the proposal for an elevated corridor between Churchgate and Virar after state agencies considered that the project is not feasible because of the upcoming WR Metro. In addition to harbour extension, the authorities have planned to use an estimated Rs 2,184 crore for 27 km long, fifth and sixth routes between Virar and Borivli under MUTP-3A.