Mumbai gets its first-ever AC local

The first ever air-conditioned suburban local for Mumbai, which was flagged off from Integral Coach Factory in Chennai on March 31, has finally arrived in the metropolis, and its trial run would take place within a week, said a senior Central Railway official today. “The AC local arrived in Mumbai this morning and is parked at the Kurla car shed, where its first round of servicing and checking would be done by our technical staff,” said the official.

He said possibly within a week, we would start its trial run, and this may take another 3-4 weeks to complete. General Manager of Central Railway S K Sood said, the trial run would be conducted at trans-harbour line of CR.Sood, however, did not specify as to how long it will take the trial run to be complete and in which route the commercial run would be operated.

“We can’t say when trial run would get over. And anything about the lines of commercial operations can be said only after we successfully complete trial run,” Sood said. Another senior official of CR, said the AC local rake will be tested by a joint team of the Research Design Standards Organisation (RDSO), BHEL, Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) and railway’s apex technical body, along with engineers from CR and Integral Coach Factory (ICF) where this coach has been built.

He also informed that the speed of the silver-blue coloured AC local train will be limited to around 50-60 kmph during the first few trials. Built at a cost of Rs 54 crore, the first AC local train has no general or first class compartments, but two of the 12 coaches could be reserved for women apart from the fact that entire rake would be vestibule connected (in two parts of six coaches each). Operation of AC local on Mumbai suburban services was announced in 2012-13 Rail Budget but initial hiccups and impediments, delayed the project.