By the time you are reading this, one of the most awaited events in the city’s suburban commute — the all-new local train that will power our commute for the next few years — would have reached Mumbai from Chennai. On Tuesday, officials monitoring the progress of the train told dna that the train had reached Jalgaon on Western Railway around 11am and would reach Mumbai in the wee hours of Wednesday.
The local train, like its manufacturing itself, had got delayed in reaching in Mumbai because of the Telangana agitation that saw scores of trains being cancelled and diverted. Moreover, the cyclone in the east coast also affected its movement. The local had been flagged off by Southern Railway and Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) on October 1 at Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory (ICF) and if all had gone according to plan, it should have reached the city around October 8, said officials.
“The local trains that run in Mumbai at a width of 3.66 metres are slightly wider than the long-distance ones that run nationwide. It means, when the local trains are running on tracks in non-suburban areas, one has to ensure that there is no train on the other track just to avoid any infringement. For this we need to get blocks on several stretches of the route to get the local train to Mumbai. That is not possible when there is an agitation like Telangana, because due to large number of cancellations of trains, giving a special block just to one train is difficult,” said a senior railway official.
The train will now run on trial for three months. This train is part of the 72 rakes that MRVC will get over the next couple of years for both WR and CR. The process to get these trains, an upgrade from the current white-and purple ones, started in December 2010 when a global tender was placed. The tender was won by transportation major Bombardier in November 2011.
The train which can top-speed at 130 km per hour, will sport the straight sidewall concept. The straight sidewall concept, one that has adorned foreign trains for years now, is expected to make the train faster, thanks to the better aerodynamics. Coaches in India, including the suburban ones in Mumbai, are bell-shaped.
Fast and Furious
The train will now run on trial for three months.
The train which can top-speed at 130 km per hour, will sport the straight sidewall concept. The straight sidewall concept, one that has adorned foreign trains for years now, is expected to make the train faster, thanks to the better aerodynamics. Coaches in India, including the suburban ones in Mumbai, are bell-shaped.
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