Mumbai: From next month, it will be a cooler ride for commuters as the very first air-conditioned local train of the Central Railway will be operational on the Trans-harbour section, which connects Thane and Raigad districts.
Sanjeev Mittal, General Manager, CR confirmed the development on Thursday stating it will run on the Thane-Vashi-Panvel corridor. However, they are waiting for a final approval from the Railway Board, which is the policy-making body of the Indian Railways.
“The AC local will be commissioned by the first week of February and it will replace one existing train service on the trans-harbour section,” Mittal said.
Interestingly, this AC local will be operated by two women, Mumtaz Kazi and Manisha Maske who are under training.
Last year in December, CR received its first AC local from the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, which was now stationed at the Kurla car shed.
CR will get six more AC locals in future, of which one will come in the first week of March. “It will carry 6,000 passengers and has features like the ‘emergency talkback’ system for passengers to communicate with the train’s guard and a GPS-based passenger information system,” said Shivaji Sutar, Chief Public Relation Officer, CR. Built at a cost of Rs 54 crore, this AC local has no general or first class compartments.
The country’s first AC local train began operations in Mumbai on Dec 25, 2017. Earlier, it was reported that the first AC local train collected a total earnings of around Rs 40 crore in the financial year 2018-19. Currently, the train runs 12 services on the Western Railway's Churchgate-Virar section from Monday to Friday.
According to railway officials, most features of the AC local are similar to the locals in the fleet of WR, barring height. The height of Central Railway’s AC local has been reduced due to several British-era bridges in the routes. The Trans-Harbour corridor is one of the four different corridors on the Central Railway. Daily, over 262 suburban services are operated on this corridor.
