‘Longitudinal seats will delay each CR train by 5 minutes’

If the experimental longitudinal seating akin to that on Metro is implemented by Central Railway (CR), commuters will face further delay as the arrangement will eat into five precious minutes of peak-hour time per train, according to senior railway officials.

Officials have concluded that while longitudinal seating will accommodate maximum number of commuters, it will also exert too much weight on the wheels of axles. Due to overbearing weight on the axles, breaks will have to be hit too much in advance and trains will also take longer to pick up speed. This will delay each train by five whole minutes.

“Currently, a normal train of 12 coaches with no commuters in it weighs 516 tonne. The same train weighs 884 tonne, with commuters. We have conducted a field-test and found that with 2x2 seating, the weight of the train goes up from 884 to 967 tones whereas with longitudinal seating, the weight skyrockets to 1,038 tonne,” said an official, on condition of anonymity.

Similarly, a normal coach, without any changes in its seating arrangement, accommodates 5,666 commuters during peak hours; this increases to 7,082 commuters with 2x2 seating whereas with longitudinal seats, the number rises to 8,278 commuters.

“Longitudinal seats increase capacity by a good 20 per cent and the 2x2 by 10 to 12 per cent, so there is a pay off with increased number of commuters who might be able to board the train, but it will throw the time table during peak hours completely into disarray,” the official added.

In one hour on the slow line, CR runs 15 services in one direction at intervals of four minutes. For the same time on the fast line, the number of services goes down to 12 at intervals of five minutes. This means that with longitudinal seats, only 12 services will be run on the fast line while the slow line will see the number of service per hour reduced to 10. Another officer said this meant a huge slash in services. “A total of 108 services run in the four peak hours of morning and evening will be reduced to 88 services,” he said.

The CR had unveiled all three types of seating to the public for the first time on December 22 as solution for the growing number of deaths due to falling off trains.