Now, you can check the status of a suburban train service with a phone call. The Central Railway (CR) has tied up with the Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to start a control room that would give necessary information on the suburban trains to commuters.

“Commuters can now dial 139 and check the status of suburban trains running on the Central Railway. It has specially been designed for the monsoon so that commuters can know the status of the trains and plan their journey accordingly,” said Shriniwas Mudgerikar, chief spokesperson, CR. “This is a pilot project and it would be continued till the end of September. Thereafter, we will review the project and take a decision accordingly,” Mudgerikar said.

The 139-helpline service, which is managed by the IRCTC, was used for checking the PNR status, arrival and departure of long distance trains until now. This would be the first time that this helpline service would be used for checking info on suburban train services.

The CR and the IRCTC officials have also set up a control room that will keep getting information on the status of the train services, monsoon. Four officials will be operating the control room. The control room, in turn, will keep feeding the message to the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. The IVR system will convert these messages into voice recordings which will be played for the commuters.

According to sources, commuters can get information about waterlogging, Over-head wire failure, boulder falling and delay of trains. This facility can be availed of in Marathi, Hindi, English and Gujarati. “Commuters have to choose option 6, which would divert their call to the control room.”