AC train likely to miss October deadline set by WR

Mumbai: The city’s long wait for air-conditioned (AC) local trains won’t end anytime soon. According to railway sources the train is unlikely to be ready by the October deadline that was set by Western Railway (WR). In fact, even after two months since Central Railway (CR) handed over the project to WR, the software, Train Management System (TMS), that monitors the location of other trains and sends signals to motormen, is still riddled with defects, while a series of tests remain to be concluded.

The AC train, which has been touted as a game changer for commuters, has been a stuck in limbo ever since it arrived in the city and handed to CR in May 2016.

The train was handed over to the WR a year later after it was learnt that the road-over-bridges (ROB) on the CR network were too low to accommodate AC rakes, which are slightly higher than regular local trains. However, the saga of glitches continues. An official said, “When the train was being tested out on the WR initially, we had already begun to work on the notorious software, but the issue were unfixable.” The official further added, “We then asked the manufacturers of the train — Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited — to upgrade the software, it proved to be a challenge for them too.”

The TMS software is the key to running a local train smoothly as it is linked up with the railway system, but synchronisation has been a failure up to now.