Workers were on the job overnight to ensure there were no delays
Mumbai : While Mumbai was fast asleep, a team of 150 men, headed by officials of Central Railway (CR), raced against time to complete the Herculean task of switching from 1,500 volts of Direct Current (DC) to 25,000 volts of Alternating Current (AC).
The 1,300 crore project, which was one of the toughest owing to several problems, from the sheer complexity of Mumbai’s geographical set up to the low height of the bridges, was successfully completed at 5:37 am on Monday with the overhead wires charged with Alternating Current (AC).
The work of the switch over was, however, stuck at Sion, where the job of connecting the traction substation to the over head wires was not completed. The substation is the major source of electric supply to the Over Head Equipment (OHE).
A senior railway official said, “It took us over an hour to complete the work of connecting the substation to the wires. At one point of time, it felt as if the conversion work will not be successfully completed in the stimulated time, which would mean that we would not be able to run trains on Monday morning.”
The railway officials, to ensure that the speed restriction which was imposed at nine locations is removed, carried out several types of work, from reducing the height of the coach to the lowering of tracks. “We had to lower the tracks at two locations, which include Matunga and Curry Road. At Matunga, the track was lowered by 20 mm on the up fast line (towards CST) while at Currey Road, it was lowered by 10 mm on up slow line (towards CST).’
Now that the conversion has been completed, CR will be able to run trains at an improved speed and save nearly Rs 10 crore per month on their bills. The number of substations in the section from CST to Kalyan has also been reduced to four from the earlier number of 21 substations.
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5 instances of tripping on first day
Mumbai: Commuters had to face inconvinence as there were five instances of power tripping reported on the first day following the conversion. There were two instances of tripping at CST alone, at platform no.14 and platform no.8, due to crows flocking around the station and sitting on the Over Head Equipment (OHE). A senior railway official explained that Direct Current (DC) traction did not trip instantly with a spark. But with AC traction, even a small spark results in power tripping. The officials are also working out a solution to avoid the crows from sitting on these OHE and are putting up glue, which will work as a deterrent.
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