The Western Railway has found a novel way to avoid the tedious task of raising the height of bridges that was required for the conversion from DC to AC.
While at Elhpinstone Road, a “no power” zone technically falls under the bridge, the WR has also lowered the pantograph that is placed on the roof of the trains to increase the distance between the wires and the train.
For a switchover to AC, the overhead equipment and the road overbridge must be at least 5.87 metres from each other. The railways initially tried to lower tracks, but there were limitations as it would have led to flooding.
The new upgraded mode of power required more vertical height and there was need to raise at least two major road over bridges, the one at Elphinstone and the other at Charni Road.
At Elphinstone Road, the neutral zone technically coincides with the low bridge and this means power below the portion of this low bridge will be suspended and hence trains will just “sail through” under here. “'They will be fast enough to reach the live wires within a short span,” an official said.
“Raising the height of road bridges would have almost stopped the city as both of them are major road over bridges. So to raise the height, we decided to lower the pantograph base that would now solve the problem,” a senior official said.
“There was no problem with the new Siemens trains, but some Alsthom-make trains had problem,” he added.
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