The good news that Mumbai's suburban system will get 12 air-conditioned local trains might be a premature one. Firstly because authorities at Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, which builds these locals, have stated that the railway board order is for 10 rakes over and above the 72 rakes - better known as Bombardier locals to Mumbaikars - that will be built as part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).
The good news that Mumbai's suburban system will get 12 air-conditioned local trains might be a premature one. Firstly because authorities at Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, which builds these locals, have stated that the railway board order is for 10 rakes over and above the 72 rakes - better known as Bombardier locals to Mumbaikars - that will be built as part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).
Secondly, there is no clear emphasis by the railway board that these trains would be air-conditioned ones. Speaking to dna, A K Agarwal, general manager of ICF, confirmed as much. "We do not know whether these nine rakes (over and above the one AC local being constructed at the ICF) will be air-conditioned. That will be known only after the trials of the first AC rake are over and the feedback is assessed," said Agarwal.
That is where the news gets uncomfortable for Mumbaikars. The trials of the city's first air-conditioned local, expected to be in the city by the end of July, might take a few months going by the time the railway authorities in the city have spent testing the two Bombardier rakes. Both Western and Central Railway have taken the better part of 2013 and 2015 to test the Bombardier rake and even now are awaiting permission from the Commissioner of Railway Safety to commission the first of the two rakes being tested.
"The air-conditioned rake will be a totally new product unlike the Bombardier ones. The AC local will have new type of sandwich flooring, imported vestibules etc. It will also have to take loads in excess of anything that AC trains currently running in India. All of this would mean very detailed testing of the product which might take a long time," said an official.
Apart from the above technicalities, the delay in the testing and commissioning of the Bombardier rakes has hit the production schedules at ICF. ICF's production schedule for these Bombardier rakes in the first half of 2104 was such that it planned to turn out 10-12 of these new locals by March 2015. That, of course, has gone for a toss, said officials, because serial production was supposed to start only after the one being tested was deployed for public use and its feedback assessed.
"Squeezing in 10 air-conditioned coaches in a tight production schedule of 70 Bombardier rakes that have to be delivered by the start of 2017 might not be easy," admitted a senior railway official.
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