According to the Central Railway (CR), the Neral-Matheran narrow gauge toy train would continue to be suspended between June 10 and October 15 due to safety concerns.
Every year during the monsoon, the train services are suspended out of concern for landslides or stonefalls.
Notably, the CR’s declaration came three days after the train derailed while travelling down to Neral, despite the fact that no passengers were hurt.
According to the CR release, shuttle services will be available all throughout the monsoon between Matheran and Aman Lodge, the station close to Dasturi Point beyond which vehicles are not permitted.
Between Matheran and Aman Lodge stations, six pairs of regular passenger trains and one “material special service” will run daily from Monday through Friday, it was said.
2 more unique shuttle services are to be available on the weekends. On June 3, at around 5.30 pm, the train was travelling from Matheran to Neral when one of the engine’s wheels derailed close to Jumma Patti station, around 95 kilometres from Mumbai, according to a CR official.
The incident happened the day after the terrible quadruple train catastrophe in Odisha, which claimed the lives of 278 people.
There were 90 to 95 passengers onboard the toy train as it departed Matheran at around 4 o’clock, but according to the spokeswoman, none of them was hurt as a result of the engine derailing.
Around 9 o’clock, the train was re-railed, and by 10.30 o’clock, it had been hauled back to Neral station, which is at the base of the Matheran hills.
Due to the incident, the final train from Neral to Matheran was cancelled. The toy train runs slowly, and in the event of a derailment, the support crew may need to manually lift and reposition a carriage that has fallen off the rails.
One of India’s few mountain railways, the Neral-Matheran train line is more than a century old. The scenic valley is traversed by the 21-km narrow gauge track as it passes beneath Matheran Hill Station.