Mumbai: CR to relay real-time updates for commuters

After being jeered at, booed and cursed for years, the Central Railway (CR) seems to have finally decoded the reason for commuters' ire.

Workers repair a snapped overhead cable near Byculla station. With the upgraded system, commuters will receive timely announcements about untoward incidents. File pic for representation

It has been learnt that the CR has commenced the process of upgrading the existing announcement system inside Siemens rakes to provide commuters with real time updates about untoward incidents.

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Of the total 121 rakes, the system has been upgraded inside 59 rakes. Sources said CR has 64 Siemens rakes, of which five were recently received from the Western Railway (WR), the rest are retrofitted rakes. They added the administration is phasing out the old rakes systematically, and has retired around 11 rakes in the last three months.

"Other retrofitted rakes don't have the announcement system. So we are improving the ones present in Siemens rakes, by trying to provide as much real time information as possible," said a CR official. The official added that the railways have started relaying ‘mind the gap between platform and train' message inside local trains. Earlier, the announcement was restricted to ‘not to travel on rooftop'.

Prevailing issues
Earlier, no announcements were made in case of untoward incidents like a technical glitch, snapping of overhead cables, rail fractures, point failures or even derailments, which left the commuters clueless and fuming.

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Time and again, passengers' associations have registered complaints about commuters receiving no or minimal information in case of a technical failure on the suburban system. Commuters claimed that such announcements are only made at railway stations and that too once in a while.