Life on the local: Wait, it’s Thambivali — an unofficial stopover between Borivali, Kandivali

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Over time, the commuters decided that Thambivali — waiting period or ‘thamb’ rhyming with the ‘vali’ — would be the apt name for the ‘station’, where some commuters residing in Borivali are known to get off.

Subrot Sikdar (30), a Mira Road resident, who works in Andheri, is one of the several people who travel from Borivali daily and has to spend time at the ‘Thambivali station’ on most days.

“Once, the train leaves Kandivali, it moves some distance before it comes to a halt near the Kandivali train shed. On most days, there is a halt for anywhere around two minutes near the train shed after which it goes onwards to Borivali railway station. What’s amazing is that there is no scheduled halt here. Yet the train stops here on most days. Several people who stay beyond Borivali miss out on their connecting trains from Borivali station because of the inordinate delays in ‘Thambivali’,” said Sikdar.

Rija Jose (33), a Borivali resident who takes a train to her Vile Parle-based office daily, said she faces problems mostly during peak hours when she is returning home around 9 pm.

“As the train reaches the Kandivali yard, it inordinately comes to a halt. While it may be halting for a few minutes, it is very frustrating since trains are crowded around that time. For those of us residing in Borivali, it is all the more irritating to be so near but still having to wait unnecessarily,” Jose said.

“There are people living near the railway station who get off the trains and walk it up. Hence, some jokingly refer to it as ‘Thambivali’. However, there have been cases of these people being run over by trains on adjacent lines, especially in the dark. Hence, I do not take any chance and decide to wait it out. Since it is a perennial problem, the railways should do something about it,” she said.

A railway official however said there were a couple of reasons for the halt at ‘Thambivali’.

First and more important, at the Borivali railway station, platforms 1, 7 and 8 are linear. Due to that, the up and down local tracks are positioned in such a way that they cut across each other to move in opposite directions.

“So if a train for Churchgate has to leave from one platform, the down train headed to Borivali has to wait till the time the up train leaves. Hence, many trains do not get the signal to go ahead and have to wait for longer periods,” the official explained.

The official said apart from this, all major outstation trains leaving from Mumbai have a halt at Borivali which also adds to the rail traffic.

“Another reason for this is the fact that some trains from Borivali and ahead return to the Kandivali yard which also causes delays in trains going downward,” the official added.

Given the fact that these issues are likely to be resolved anytime soon, rail commuters believe thinking of the halt as a station — although not a real one — only makes the excruciating wait in the crowded compartment a little more bearable.