India, March 17 -- The Central Railway's effort to stretch the carrying capacity of its trains is progressing at snail's pace, missing its deadline by nine months. The reason, the railway admits, is that work on extending suburban platforms to accommodate 15-car trains is taking longer than expected, pushing project completion from March to December 2026.

The project envisages extending 50 platforms at 34 stations on the CSMT/Kalyan/Kasara/Khopoli corridor, to reduce overcrowding in Mumbai's suburban trains. Each 15-car train can carry 25% more passengers than 12-coach trains, that is, 1,000-1,500 more commuters per train.

"Work on seven stations is complete, and we aim to cover 20 more stations by the end of May," said an CR official. ...