Western Railway provides relief from heat, to run AC trains, but there is a catch

It seems that Mumbaikars are slowly getting accustomed to travel in AC local. And so the Western Railway authorities have planned to run it on Saturdays as well in the next one month. At present the WR are carrying on maintenance of Mumbai’s first AC local during weekends. Sources said that over the past few days officials from Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) and Integral Coach Factory which manufactured the AC rake, have been working on technical details to minimize maintenance and other issues. Once this is sorted, will the WR take this train out for service on Saturdays too.

The authorities are operating 12 services everyday and in fact even recently coloured the ends of coaches into green —- which are dedicated as women’s compartment. In March 3.13 lakh commuters used the AC local, while in February and January there were 2 lakh and 1.77 lakh commuters respectively.

The daily average count of commuters inside the AC local has upped from 667 per AC service to 798 per AC service. The officials state that this surely has boosted their confidence. There are two 15-tonne AC in each compartment of this 12-car train. The technical staff has kept the AC temperature at 23 degree Celsius which is expected to be lowered to 21 degree Celsius in summer.  

The AC train was introduced on the WR’s suburban route on December 25, 2017. It has a sitting capacity of 1028 passengers, while the total capacity of the train is 5964 passengers.

(Source: DNA)