Rail Budget 2011: What does Mumbai get?

Mumbai local train commuters have quite some reasons to be pleased with Mamata Banerjee's Rail Budget 2011. Here are the highlights of the railway budget that will affect Mumbaikars directly: Fast corridor on the Harbour line  New suburban line on the Virar-Diva-Panvel route A third line on the Kalyan–Kasara stretch Another line on Pen-Kasu route and Panvel-Apta routes, to be completed by March  47 additional services on the Thane-Vashi,...

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Rail Budget 2011: Twitter Reactions

Now with such an important topic of Rail Budget making the news, thousand of tweets are expected. In 140 characters, people have voiced their views on the railway budget. While some people expressed their anger, others were content. But what grabbed my attention were these interesting Tweets: PritishNandy  Love Mamata Banerjee's comments while presenting railway budget. Only person I know who speaks in Bengali and...

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Rail Budget 2011: Mumbai Commuters React

Rail Budget means different things for different people. So while for Mamata Banerjee it holds a lot of importance with the elections starting soon, for Mumbai local train commuters it means the quality of at least two hours of their day. After all, most of us travel from one end of the city to another everyday at peak hours. So here are some reactions on Rail Budget 2011: Keyur, who loves travelling by trains, says, "I want the budget to focus a lot on the cleanliness aspect. More than our non-AC railway compartments, our railway platforms...

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Rail Budget 2011: What College Students Wanted

If you thought Indian college students don't take Rail Budget seriously, think again.  A website dedicated to college students, indiancolleges.com, interviewed some of the students about their expectations from Mamata Banerjee's Rail Budget 2011-12. From increase in train frequency to cleanliness, the students have many expectations from the budget. Read all about What College Students Wanted From Didi And to know whether Didi stood up to...

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Rail Budget 2011: Mamata Banerjee's Speech - Full Text

Mamata Banerjee's speech as she presented Railway Budget for 2011-12 was quite interesting. While reading out the Rail Budget, she recited several lines including : Hum Aah Bhee Karte Hain Toh Ho Jaate Hain Badnaam Woh Katl Bhee Karte Hain Toh Charcha Nahi Hota Clearly, she played safe by indicating that critics will always find some flaws with the budget. Anyways, we will come to the interesting part of the speech a bit later. For now, here's...

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Rail Budget 2011: Train Fares

Mamata Banerjee has not increased the cost of train tickets in Rail Budget 2011. There is no increase in freight rates as well. The booking charges for both air-conditioned and non AC seats have been reduced by 50%. Online ticketing will get cheaper too! Physically-challenged passengers will get a greater concession in train far...

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Rail Budget 2011: Date and Time

Rail Budget 2011 will be presented by Mamata Banerjee at 1200 noon on 25th February, 2011 ...

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Railway Budget 2010 - Mamata Banerjee's Speech

Before we start watching the Rail Budget 2011, let’s have a look at what Mamata Banerjee had to say in the last year’s budget. How much of it has been implemented and how those promises have affected us will give us an insight into how much we should expect from the Rail Budget 2011. Last year, Mamata Banerjee started the speech by saying she had 2 considerations in mind: Viability of projects and social responsibility. She announced Mission 2020 of short term and long term goals. Here are the highlights, announcements and proposals of Mamata Banerjee's...

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Central / Harbour line trains running late today

Harbour line trains: 8.40 am train from Andheri (to Panvel) was cancelled. Commuters are furious as there were no announcements. Instead the 8.24 am Churchgate local arrived while commuters waited for the Panvel train. Central line trains: Similarly, in the Central line, a Belapur-CST train was cancelled without any announcement. And of course, the indicators were not operational at Seawoods Darave station in the morni...

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30 Trains delayed on Western line

My friend Deepa called me early in the morning. It took her one hour to reach Andheri station from Borivli. Btw, one hour after boarding the train! As always, nobody in the train knew why the train was taking ages to reach Andheri. What? Did you really expect the public announcement system to keep the commuters updated in such cases! Anyways, so as for the reason, here it is - Technical Snag. Don't ask me what it means. For us, it only means an...

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Safar ya suffer?

Guest post by Eknath Makne: My ex-colleague-friend Anuradha Khanna-Pentapalli invited bloggers to share theri memorable incidents on train. Until three years ago, two incidents in which I had close shave with death, remained unforgettable ones. With steep rise in number of commuters on local trains in recent history, daily journeys to workplace have been offering slow deaths in installments. Hence, the two instances are no more memorable ones... Shashi Tharoor's tweet of Air India services being cattle class may have found many takers. But if...

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Mega block on Harbour, Central Lines

Here are the mega block timings for Sunday, 6th Feb, 2011. CENTRAL LINE Mega block for fast trains from Thane to Kalyan: 10.40 am to 3.40 pm Fast trains leaving Thane from 10.22 am to 3.34 pm will run on slow track and will halt at all stations. HARBOUR LINE Mega block timing between CST and Kurla stations: 11 am to 4 pm Mega block timing between Wadala and Bandra stations: 11 am to 4 pm Mega block timing from CST to Bandra/Andheri: 10.47 am to 4.03 pm Mega block timing from Bandra/Andheri to CST: 10.41 am to 3.48 pm However, down harbour...

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