Mumbai : ‘Achche din’ are here for Central Railway (CR) commuters. After several delays and missed deadlines, the entire track from Kalyan to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) has been converted from DC to AC.
This means, new Bombardier trains, increased speed of the existing trains, better maintenance and savings for the railways. The conversion work that was expected to be over by May was delayed due to monsoon and a new deadline of December was set.
A senior official from CR said, “The conversion work upto CST is completed while the bridges, which were a major hindrance, have been fitted with insulation sheets and will take care of the high voltage in wires.”
As the conversion work is now completed, the papers will be sent for clearance to the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS). The official added, “We are preparing the papers which will be submitted in a week to the CRS for the sanctioning.”
The testing of tracks with the conversion will take another 4 to 5 days but the application has to be sent at least 30 days in advance.
Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), Chetan Bakshi said, “The testing of work will take at least 4 days as it is being done during night. The approvals will be given immediately if everything is in place while the reports will be submitted later.”
The conversion will also help in saving around Rs 120 crore per annum for the railways and reduce the power usage by 33 percent. Where the conversion work of harbour line will also be undertaken soon and is expected to be completed in next six months.
The officials said, “The work on harbour line will not take much time as there are no road-over bridges (RoBs) as on central line which delayed conversion work.”