Mumbai: Central Railway says no more new AC locals for now

Commuters get ready to board an AC local, at CSMT in April. File pic

The Central Railway has said it won't receive any more air-conditioned trains for now. The last one with the existing design will go to the Western Railway, said officials. With four trains each in their respective fleets, CR runs 56 AC services daily, while WR runs 48 services. Officials said CR has already received its quota of AC trains from the present prototype.

There are, however, long-term plans to get new 238 Mumbai-customised AC locals with inbuilt infotainment features and better acceleration under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project - 47 under MUTP-3 and 191 under MUTP-3A.

"There is a plan to have a complete AC local train fleet in Mumbai soon. The nine initial prototype trains that are now operational in the city were made for assessment and study with different types of technologies and upgrades for Mumbai, like deciding on the height, underslung motors and door-closing feedback. One more is expected to arrive," a senior official said.

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mid-day had highlighted in January how the city's stakeholders like dabbawalas, fisherfolk and vendors wanted back their luggage compartment in the new design of the AC train. "Central Railway will not be receiving any more AC locals for now and the one that will arrive from Integral Coach Factory in Chennai will now go to Western Railway as we had borrowed one from them," Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

The train has, however, become a political tool. Bowing to protesting commuters from Kalwa and Badlapur, it withdrew 10 new AC services within five days of their introduction. After protests from commuters who illegally board local trains from Kalwa carshed and also those from Badlapur against the new AC services, elected representatives turned the issue into a political battle and spiralled it into an agitation, meeting railway bosses and sending representations to the railway minister.

Despite the protests, the AC services have been doing well on the ticketing front. In August, 17.19 lakh commuters used the AC locals on WR, while 12.37 lakh took the air-conditioned trains on CR. As per September 1, the average number of AC local users stood at 51,528, up from 5,939 in February. The railways slashed the cost of AC local tickets from May 5, bringing down the price of the minimum single journey ticket up to 10 km to R35.

However, MUTP envisages a complete AC local fleet for Mumbai. With the existing prototypes generating a lot of feedback, officials said they can now move to the next stage. "Technical specifications for the series production are under finalisation at this stage. Once the feedback is in place and with more inputs like requirement of luggage compartment which has been unique to local trains and other factors, a final design will be frozen and series production will begin once the tenders are placed," he added.

The first AC local in Mumbai started on December 25, 2017, on WR. Pre-pandemic, one AC local train had been inducted in regular service on CR's trans-harbour line but was discontinued due to the lockdown. Subsequently, AC services were introduced on the harbour line. But later it was found that the harbour and trans-harbour line services were not garnering enough response, as CR was unable to run them in peak hours due to capacity constraints. It was then decided to focus on the main line and all AC services were shifted to it.