Central Railway's first AC local likely to be on track from January

The train, which is expected to run on the Thane-Vashi sector, will have a total of 16 services

Central Railway's (CR) much-awaited first AC local train arrived at the Kurla carshed on Tuesday. The train, which has been customised for the CR section, is the shortest in the fleet of the existing AC locals, with a height of 4,270mm as compared to the 4,283mm ones that run on the Western Railway (WR) section. Just after the train arrived at the carshed, the destination board mentioned Borivli, but then it was swiftly changed to Dadar.

Speaking to mid-day, CR divisional railway manager, Shalabh Goel said, "The train will be put into service soon, but we are yet to decide its timetable and from when it would run. However, it will be driven by a motorwoman and we have also trained a group of 100 people to ensure that the train functions without any problems." He further said that the second AC local would arrive before March next year.

"We had a meeting with all the stakeholders and commuter associations in January and it turned out that everyone wants the train to run on their respective sections. We will conduct a meeting again with passenger associations and take a final call on the matter," said Shivaji Sutar, CR chief public relations officer.

The new AC local is the shortest of all the trains in the existing fleet

According to officials, the train would most likely run from January on the Thane-Vashi sector, as this would not involve compromising existing services. It would have a total of 16 services. The fare structure would be similar to that of the WR AC locals, which is about 1.3 times the first class base fare.

The officials further said that the train had the best features and it would soon be inducted in the fleet. It would have CCTV cameras inside and the door would also close faster as compared to the other AC locals.

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