India, June 10 -- One hundred and seventy-two years after Great Indian Peninsula Railways ran Bombay's first suburban train between Bori Bunder and Thane, the city's rail network continues to be its lifeline. But Monday's accident at Mumbra in which four people lost their lives is a stark reminder of how hazardous the daily commute is for millions of Mumbaikars.

Trains that are meant to carry 2,500 passengers routinely carry twice that number, making the crush load on Mumbai's suburban network among the densest in the world. The 1,810 daily train services on the central railway on which the accident happened, carry four million passengers annually, excluding the hundreds of daily ticketless passengers. The city's eye-watering property pr...