Mumbai rides ticketless on Central Railway's first AC train

The platforms were already jam packed because of delayed services when the AC train rolled in. Pic/Rajendra B Aklekar

On the very first day, the air-conditioned train on the trans-harbour line had onboard hundreds of ticketless travellers owing to confusion among them. The AC local also led to services on the route to run extremely late and platforms getting packed at Thane and other stations along the line.

The AC train was delayed at every station due to issues with the automatic door closing. This was a result of excessive crowds, officials said.

Services, however, recovered in the second phase in the evening ran without hiccups. Officials said that the first day was a learning experience and that they had deployed a staff of 100 security personnel in preparation for its regular run.

When mid-day visited Thane station, the 9:19 am Thane-Nerul AC train arrived at the platform at 9:45 am resulting in heavy crowd on the platform. When the local did arrive, there was complete chaos as passengers inside the packed train struggled to come out and the crowd on the platform forced itself in.

While there were announcements about the introduction of an AC train, commuters pounced on it as soon as it arrived barely leaving any scope for inspecting tickets.

"If this is going to be the scene every day, god save us. The AC train must be removed from the peak hour schedule and introduced in the afternoons till it settles down," Ankush Gawand, a commuter said.

Officials soon realised that the door-closing mechanism was being obstructed owing to the excessive crowd, leading to delays at every station. This, in turn, delayed all other trains in the system too.

As per regulations, the fare on AC train is 1.3 times that of the existing first-class fare and commuters would have to buy these tickets prior to the journey.

However, the train on Friday morning had maximum passengers without the special AC train ticket this morning.

Officials said the ticket inspection too was lenient this morning as it was the very first day and by the time of going to the press, the sale of tickets had not been collated.

"The AC train runs in two phases in the day. The second phase which began after 4 pm seemed to be normal and there were no hiccups like morning," Central Railway chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar told mid-day.

There are plans to get six AC local trains by March 2020 to introduced on the mainline between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT)-Kalyan and on the harbour railway between CSMT and Panvel railway stations.

9.45am
Time AC local arrived at Thane though it was expected at 9.19

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