CR asks WR to take charge of AC local
The Western Railway is still considering the request as they too are trying to conduct a check on the feasibility of the rakes.
Mumbai: The Central Railway (CR) has requested the Western Railways (WR) to take charge of the Rs 54 crore brand new air-conditioned train that was purchased, from BHEL in April 2016 by the latter. The WR authorities are “considering” the request. However, since April neither the CR nor the WR have been keen on operating the train due to reasons associated with its height and faulty air-conditioning.
According to sources, the CR engineers have spent up to 100 man-hours while trying to address the train’s glitches over the past eight months at a Kurla car-shed where it has been gathering dust since April. The WR is still considering the request as they too are trying to conduct a check on the feasibility of the rakes. Western Railway general manager, G.C. Agarwal said, “We have got the request from CR a week ago, as we are looking into which section the train will be able to be run if we do induct it into our line”.
The air-conditioned train was to originally run on the WR, but ex-general manager of CR Sunil Kumar Sood who was then handling the additional charge of WR as well, decided that the train would be run on the CR instead. An official from the CR on the condition of anonymity said, “It’s not that we don’t want to run the train on our line but our bridges are too low on the mainline and the height of the train is too high. Also there is no clientele on CR, Harbour and the Trans-Harbour where 90 per cent of the commuters are blue-collared.”
Sources from WR said, if the train is indeed inducted on its system it is likely to run between Dadar and Virar.