Last DC train gets grand farewell

According to the Railway’s two-year plan for the Harbour line, every alternate train will be an air-conditioned one. Central Railway’s general manager Sunil Kumar Sood made this statement when the last Direct Current (DC) train in the country plied on the Harbour line on Saturday night.

Mr Sood was speaking about the future of the Harbour and the Trans-Harbour line after the conversion. “Our plan is that in next two-years every alternate train, at least on mainline Harbour, will be an air-conditioned one,” he said.

The air-conditioned train arrived in Mumbai a week ago and there have been talks as to why the Trans-Harbour and Harbour line were chosen for it instead of the mainline.

Responding to the query, Mr Sood said, “The air-conditioned train is ideally compatible with the Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) system which will soon be on the Harbour and Trans Harbour line. It will take a year for both the CBTC and the final approval to be given to the air-conditioned train. Hence running the air-conditioned train with the advanced signalling system of CBTC would be ideal.”

Mr Sood also said that in order to accommodate the air-conditioned train into the mainline, one or two services would have to be permanently removed from the timetable. “On the Trans-Harbour line there is already a low number of services so we have enough margin to run the air-conditioned trains between two existing services. Whereas on the mainline I will have to cancel one to two trains at least to accommodate the air-conditioned one,” he said.

However, he also added that the option could be considered if there was a strong public demand for the train.