Mumbai Monorail rakes still being repaired by cannibalising spares from new train

Mumbai's spanking new monorail rakes have to be repaired by cannibalising spares from the new train which arrived from Malayasia on June 20. One of the monorail trains, RST8, which has a problem with its Constant Velocity Joint as reported by dna on Tuesady, was repaired using cannibalised parts. RST 8 will be back on the track from Wednesday onwards.

The fact is that even after five months of monorail being commissioned, Malaysian company Scomi has failed to provide spare parts and hence cannibalising from new trains is the only option as of now.

Now there are a total of 11 monorail rakes for the entire system. Out of this, five are used during peak hours and one is kept as standby. During lean hours, three keep running in a loop along 8.93km long Wadala Depot-Chembur corridor and one train is kept on standby.

The cannibalised train is thus rendered useless and awaits arrival of spare parts from Malaysia. If there is any further delay in spare parts, the vicious cycle of cannibalising and repairing will continue, rendering one or two trains completely useless.

UPS Madan, the commissioner of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which is the owner of Mumbai Monorail project, did not respond to calls made by dna.