The capacity of maintenance facilities for local trains running on the suburban section of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region will be increased soon. Rail authorities are working on two more state-ofthe-art car sheds – one at Vangaon on the Western Railway (WR) and the other at Karjat along the Central Railway (CR) – which will be ready by 2025. The process of land acquisition for these facilities has already begun.
These new car sheds will be high-tech, with the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) also planning to install sensors for inspection of local trains, which is at present done manually. “Each carshed will have state-of-theart facilities and will be developed keeping in mind introduction of more air-conditioned local trains in future,” said a MRVC official.
Currently, Mumbai's suburban network has six carsheds. Of these, three are located on CR at Kurla, Sanpada, and Kalwa, while the three on WR are located at Mumbai Central, Kandivli and Virar. Over 250 local trains undergo inspection and maintenance at these sheds every day, besides parking. “Keeping in mind expansion of the suburban section in the future, we decided to develop one carshed at Vangaon on the WR and another near Karjat on CR. Both will help in the introduction of a few more 'UP' local services, especially during wee hours,” said a senior MRVC official.
