In a good news for Western line commuters, Western Railway will run newly designed rakes to mark its 69th foundation day.
According to Mumbai Mirror, this will be the first non-air-conditioned local train on WR to have CCTV cameras in all coaches. The local train will have a few new features, like push button instead of the emergency chain. Ravinder Bhakar, chief public relations officer, WR, told the leading daily, “We are introducing the Uttam rake with improved exteriors and advanced features on an experimental basis. Further planning will be done for future production after taking feedback from commuters.”
Bhakar further told the leading daily that the new rake will run as a Churchgate-Virar ladies special today which depart from Churchgate at 6.13 pm and reaching Virar at 7.57 pm. And from tomorrow it will be introduced as a normal service that will run around 10 times a day.
Other upgrades includes, new seats with redesigned in both the first and second class coaches. The first class will have brown cushioned seats with a higher backrest. In the general compartment, the seats have been made from Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) with a wood finish, and dual-lock windows, instead of polycarbonate sheets. The new rakes come with anti-dent partitions, modular luggage racks with more space. The new rake also has larger grab handles, which WR says are for better grip, but in reality will allow two people to use a single handle. The new rakes will also have energy-saving fans, and diffused-light LED tubes.
