Railway Board CEO stresses on need to popularise air conditioned local trains

Suneet Sharma interacts with passengers on board a local train. On a two-day visit to city, Sharma conducted internal staff meetings and inspections

On a two-day visit to Mumbai, Railway Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Suneet Sharma said there was a need to popularise air-conditioned local trains and that he was in talks with the zonal general managers on how it could be done. Railway officials said of the various ways AC locals could be popularised, one could be by making the price of the single-journey tickets at par with Metro fares and another, by allowing commuters to first board the train and then issue tickets to them. However, a final decision is yet to be taken.

Sharma conducted internal staff meetings and inspected what the railway officials showed him. He, however, did not officially interact with the media. mid-day had reported last month on how the railways plans to focus on AC local trains for future procurements and no new non-AC locals trains would now be inducted in the fleet.

On CR, , Sharma inspected the CSMT station development display on platform 18, where senior railway officials briefed him about the development plan. He also visited Parel workshop and flagged off the 10th locomotive to be used on the sub-Himalayan region of Kangra Valley and Kalka-Shimla Railways.

On WR, Sharma inspected the urban pod - sophisticated, state-of-the-art retiring rooms, located at Mumbai Central station, which are yet to be opened to the public. He then inaugurated the Unified Command and Control Centre, a centralised control room for train operations.