In a virtual admission of defeat, Divisional Railway Manager of CR S C Gupta today claimed that though efforts have been made in that direction, the results would only be visible after a few months. ``Let us not indulge in figures, I assure you that we are working hard to improve the punctuality of trains,'' he said before pouring out the woes of railwaymen working under extremely difficult conditions.

Though 10 days have passed after Naik made his claim at the inaugural journey of the Kurla-Varanasi Express on Gandhi Jayanti, the performance of CR services have only deteriorated in the past week.

The very night after Naik made the statement services on both Central and Western Railway came to a halt for hours after heavy rains flooded areas like Matunga, Sion,Kurla and Mumbai Central. More problems were in store for the rail systems which had to bear the brunt of commuters left stranded by the BEST strike. Services on CR ran nearly 20 minutes late during this time.

Services on harbour line had been disrupted during the past two days due to faults of overhead equipment wires. Similar problems hit between Mankhurd and Panvel for over three hours on Saturday evening and continued on Sunday with the delay coming down to nearly two hours and trains from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus being terminated at Vashi.

``We have been having problems with lightnings especially in the past three days, an unusual phenomenon during October,'' said Gupta. Ironically, CR had acquired 100 lightning arrestors early this year but did not set them up. ``Other factors like transportation came in the way. But we plan to install it in time for the next monsoon,'' Gupta explained.

Besides putting up the now familiar excuse of encroachment on railway land, Gupta also blamed the mixedtraffic that CR had to cope with for the delays. CR loads nearly 1400 goods wagons while running 112 long distance trains along with providing more than 1000 services for suburban traffic every day.

Low life of tracks, garbage, road level crossings, conversions of fast trains to slow ones leading to change in tracks, and runover cases have also contributed to delay in services. That 89 rakes of the 110 available with CR having crossed their age limit of 25 years has only compounded the problem.

CR plans to spend Rs 6 crore every year for constructing road overbridges at level crossings. Moreover, over Rs 714 crore will be used to convert the existing DC traction systems into the more efficient AC tractions. Imported machines will also be used to lift tracks at low lying areas to prevent flooding. Gupta has also promised to improve the announcement systems shortly.