Trials show AC train is too cold for comfort

In a new twist to the air-conditioned train saga, it has come to light that the temperature of the train that is being tested at the Kurla car shed gets too cold for comfort. The need for cool temperatures has been overestimated, with the temperature reaching as low as 16 degrees Celsius and staying there, instead of changing automatically according to the number of people in the train. Officials working on the system said that after 10 minutes inside the train a person would end up feeling frozen.

The electricals have been fitted by Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL) and has two heavy-duty air-conditioning blasters on either side of six of the 12-coach train, but these are so powerful that the temperature reaches a nippy 16 degrees Celsius. In a normal situation the reading should hover between 20-24 degrees Celsius in order to get the temperature just right. “The temperatures inside the train should change automatically to the number of people that enter or alight from the train — the higher the number of people inside, the lower the temperature. Say it is at 20 degrees Celsius. If there are fewer people inside, it should go up to 24 degrees Celsius, but currently there are some glitches in the technology, which is why it is unable to do this,” said a railway official on the condition of anonymity.

Officials are currently working on a system, where the compressor linked to the thermostat inside the coach adjusts itself when the temperature inside changes. “Although this equipment is already placed inside the train, we are working on fine-tuning it as it goes down to 16 degrees Celsius and sticks there,” added the official on the condition of anonymity.

While Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu had announced that the train would be up and running by May 15 in his visit to the city last month, railway officials said they underestimated the technical issues like these. “We were aware that there would be a lot of problems in the train and our trials would have to be intensive, in fact we thought that the cooling would not be good enough but this is a complete googly as far as we are concerned,” said the official.

Central Railway (CR) general manager Sunil Kumar Sood, who had in a press briefing last week, agreed to the fact that there were a lot of glitches in the software of the train that are still being worked out.