The Harbour and Trans-Harbour line of city suburban services might lose out on the new signalling system and the air-conditioned train, respectively.
Sources within the railway have said that the plan to provide air-conditioned trains have been reconsidered as the officials fear a backlash from Central Railway’s (CR) mainline and Western Railway (WR) who has always been given new rolling stock due to the geographical advantages has also become viable choice.
The air-conditioned train that had come to the city back in April this year has been rusting at the Kurla carshed after officials said the train was too high to run on Trans-Harbour. On the other hand, plan to give modern signalling system to the Harbour line that would enable it to run services within an interval of three minutes is under revision too as now an elevated corridor is planned.
Officials on the CR had asked the WR to run a trial on its line to check the viability of the air-conditioned train, but it was found to be too high for the WR too.
“The WR is better equipped to run the train. If we plan to run it on Trans-harbour, we will be flooded with requests from politicians asking us to operate it on the CR mainline; others have said only commuters on the WR would be ready to shell out the fare for an air-conditioned train.”
Regarding the signalling system called-Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) that was to be placed on the Harbour, officials said once the elevated corridor is built, the line would not need the system any more. “First people thought that at least Harbour will get relief with the CBTC, but then the investment of nearly Rs 1,000 crore needed for the system will be wasted, once the elevated corridor is constructed; so it has been kept on the back burner as well.”
The CBTC was removed by the Niti Ayog from the list of infrastructure additions as part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project III in early August itself.
