Mumbai's Lifeline: The Perils of Suburban Rail Network
Mumbai's local or suburban rail network is the teeming city’s lifeline. The vital yet perilous tracks bared their dark side on Monday in a tragic accident between Mumbra and Diva. Thirteen people, hanging on the footboards, fell off two passing trains. Four of them died. The accident happened on a curve that narrowed the gap between the trains and the commuters collided.
A mainly north-south, 450-kilometre rail network, one of the oldest and busiest in the world, it ferries 7.5 million commuters daily squeezed like sardines in unbearably hot and sweaty compartments. The more adventurous hang on for dear life riding to work on the footboards. That’s why it is also among the deadliest networks. From 2005 to 2024, an estimated 51,802 lives were lost — an average of seven deaths every single day. These are not mere numbers but people, delivery workers, office clerks, electricians, and lakhs of others who keep the city running. They leave home every morning not knowing if they will return safely.
The Railway Board immediately announced that Mumbai’s suburban rakes will now be fitted with automatic closing doors. It’s the case of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted. Automatic closing doors have been promised earlier, too. A few air-conditioned locals already serve the network, but the overwhelming rakes are non-AC. Officials have always trotted out the excuse that converting non-AC rakes to ones with automatic doors runs the risk of suffocating commuters. If they are good enough for other cities and modern rail systems, why not for Mumbai? Now, pushed against the wall, the Railways are toying with louvres for the doors and high-pressure fans on the ceiling to pump in the air.
The blame also lies with the city’s growing spatial inequality. Mumbai’s unaffordable real estate prices explain the high suburban commuter traffic. People live on the outskirts where home prices pinch less. The downside is they spend long hours commuting. It is the trudge of these millions that turns the wheels of the city. Commuter organisations have been demanding more rakes, a four-track system between Kurla and Kalyan where the commuter load is the heaviest and a special authority for Mumbai’s suburban railway. It is time for officialdom to wake up and stop deaths on the tracks.
