Thane Metro Line 4 & 4A Trial Run: A Historic Milestone

There are mornings that pass into the ordinary rhythm of a city, and there are mornings that a city remembers for decades. September 22, 2025 was one such morning for Thane. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde conducted a technical inspection and flagged off the trial run of Metro Line 4 and 4A in Thane. For a city that has long carried the weight of Mumbai's overflow while waiting patiently for its own rapid transit, the sight of a metro rake gliding along elevated tracks above Ghodbunder Road was nothing short of poetic.

The inspection was not a symbolic gesture but a genuine technical exercise. The inspection was specific to Phase 1, covering four stations on the priority stretch — Gaimukh Gaon Junction, Ghodbundar Road, Kasarvadavali, and Vijay Garden — as stated in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's official statement. The two leaders themselves boarded the train and travelled from Gaimukh to Vijay Garden, a gesture that spoke to the confidence the state now places in a project that had, for years, existed mostly on paper and in promise.

Speaking about the moment, the Chief Minister was candid about the project's troubled past. Fadnavis said the construction of Metro in Maharashtra had gained a lot of momentum, especially the Thane Metro line, which was lying closed during the time of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. Deputy Chief Minister Shinde, who also holds the Urban Development portfolio, was visibly moved by the occasion. He called it a joyous and historic day for Thanekars, noting that these projects were on hold during the Maha Vikas Aghadi tenure and restarted after he became Chief Minister in 2022. He went further, tying the moment to Thane's own railway heritage: he remarked that more than 172 years after the inauguration of the railway in Thane, the city was now being served by a modern metro system, which is a historic moment for Thane.

The numbers behind this trial run are as impressive as the ceremony itself. The development is part of the 32.3-km Line 4, along with the 2.8-km extension Line 4A, together running for a distance of 35 km and covering 32 stations. The project is being built at a cost of approximately ₹16,000 crore and is expected to carry 13.43 lakh passengers daily once operational. The trains themselves are no small affair — the metro on this route will have eight-coach trains — and a 45-hectare depot site has been allotted at Mogharpada, which will serve as the depot hub for Metro 4, 4A, 10, and 11.

What makes this line particularly consequential for the future of the region is its eventual integration with Mumbai's broader metro network. CM Fadnavis stressed that once fully operational and connected to Line 11 (Wadala–CSMT), the corridor will stretch 58 km, becoming India's longest elevated metro line, expected to carry over 21 lakh passengers daily. Deputy CM Shinde, in the same spirit, promised that with all metro phases operational by the end of next year, residents will have seamless connectivity to Mumbai, the eastern and western suburbs, and other planned metro corridors. The ambition is not modest — this is meant to be a corridor that redraws how Thane relates to the metropolis around it. An estimated 21 lakh people are expected to benefit daily, with travel time reduced by 50–75%, and being an elevated route, it will also ease road traffic congestion.

With this trial run, Thane becomes Maharashtra's fifth city to get Metro services, joining Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, and Navi Mumbai in a select club of urban centres with rapid rail transit. For homebuyers, the timing carries a quiet but unmistakable significance. The stations tested in this trial — Kasarvadavali, Ghodbunder Road, and Vijay Garden — sit along the very corridor that has, over the past decade, become one of Thane's most sought-after residential belts. Just a short drive from this stretch, along Pokhran Road 2, Oberoi Realty's Garden City Thane has already demonstrated how strongly buyers respond to well-connected addresses — the project recorded a gross booking value of around ₹1,348 crore within its first three days of launch. As the metro moves from trial to full commissioning, homes along this belt are likely to find themselves not just better connected, but more valuable — a fact that seasoned homebuyers in Thane would do well to note as they weigh their next move.

For now, the trains run only on their test tracks, watched over by engineers and officials rather than commuters. But the symbolism of that first ride — a Chief Minister and a Deputy Chief Minister travelling together above the rooftops of Thane — captures something larger: a city stepping, at last, into the metro age, and carrying with it the aspirations of the many families who call this rapidly transforming corridor home.