MUMBAI, Dec. 16 -- The 10.8-km long Thane-Kalyan has become a pain point for the railways. Almost 1,000 trains pass through this stretch every day, while stations such as Thane, Diva and Kalyan also serve as points of interchange for a vast number of daily commuters. The Central Railway authorities are now working on a plan to smoothen train operations and mitigate commuter troubles-studies are underway for laying the 7th and 8th rail lines on the Kalyan-Thane-Parel sector, which includes the possibility of going underground at Dombivli. The CR authorities have appointed a third-party agency for the final location survey (FLS). This is a detailed survey that stakes out the final alignment for a new line by establishing the precise location of the tracks, detailed plans and drawings for infrastructure and engineering works. "It has been a few weeks since FLS studies began," said a senior CR official. "We are in the first phase, looking at the new rail lines to come up on the Kalyan-Thane corridor which is heavily congested." The stations of Thane, Diva and Kalyan are critical nodes where rail corridors interchange with the trans-harbour corridor while the main line bifurcates, with one arm going towards Kasara and the other to Karjat/Khopoli. With the expansion of Mumbai's metropolitan region, there are no less than 1.2 to 1.5 million commuters travelling daily from different stations on the Thane-Kalyan route. In early 2022, the rail authorities finished work on the 5th and 6th lines on the Thane-Diva section, one of the longest running rail projects ever. "There is space available in pockets on the Thane-Kalyan route to expand horizontally," said another senior CR official. "There are a few stretches especially before and after Dombivli where we are examining the possibility of going underground. All of these will be clear in the FLS study, which we expect to be ready by mid-2026." Thane-Kalyan has around 1,200 suburban train services on both the slow and fast corridors. Adding to the congestion is the fact that the stations at Thane connect the trans-harbour corridor to Panvel, while Diva station is used by passengers to travel all the way to Roha. At present, Diva is one of the busiest stations on the CR suburban network, where around 70% to 75% of the 894 daily local train services make a halt. As a result, the level crossing at Diva is, on average, opened at least 39 times a day for three to five minutes. In case of road traffic, the trains halt for 10 to 15 mins as well, thus badly impacting services. The proposed lines are part of a larger plan to create a future-ready expansion of LTT Terminus and a new Parel Terminus. This will further segregate the national rail traffic from suburban train operations. The rail authorities said that a clear path would be made available between Kalyan and Thane stations and then up to Parel to scale up outstation train operations. "It is good that studies are being carried out for the expansion of existing networks with the 7th and 8th lines," said P C Sehgal, former managing director of the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation. "LTT has become a major terminus and the 7th and 8th lines will create four lines each for suburban and long-distance trains in the future. However, the fact remains that these have long gestation periods. For instance, MUTP-1 was studied in the 1980s but work began in 2008. Even the 15-car trains are taking years to be executed." The CR authorities are working on adding at least four more platforms at LTT in the months to come, for which they have identified space. With the addition of these, they will be able to accommodate more long-distance trains at LTT. Jagdeep Desai, architect and transport analyst, pointed out that while the addition of new lines was all very well, the railways needed to immediately utilise artificial intelligence for scheduling and marshalling suburban and long-distance trains to minimise delays. "A scenario shouldn't arise where despite putting up these lines, trains run into bottlenecks at sections where there are fewer tracks," he said. Parel is being developed into a new rail terminus. It will sync with the new 5th and 6th lines between Kurla and Parel, which will be exclusively used by mail/express trains. This terminus in the heart of Mumbai will take some load off existing stations like CSMT and Dadar. Currently, CR is struggling to complete the 5th and 6th lines between Kurla and CSMT-a 34-km stretch divided into two parts. The first is the 10.1-km Kurla-Parel segment where the proposed outstation terminus will be located. The second extends from Parel to CSMT....