Central Railway Harbour, Central line to get Bombardier boost; passengers set to benefit

The Central Railway (CR) is getting 24 brand new Bombardier rakes of which some will run on the Harbour line. The new rakes are likely to improve the speed of the local trains and will be better and airy as well. “We have already procured 15 rakes and others will join the fleet soon,” said SK Jain, Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai), CR.

These trains have good acceleration and deceleration which would help the authorities speed up the locals.

The CR authorities have already planned on increasing the speeds from 80 kmph to 105 kmph between Panvel and Mankhurd. The commute on CSMT-Panvel currently takes around 75 minutes which shall come down to 60 minutes. The CR authorities are also improving infrastructure on this stretch however it is not possible between Mankhurd-CSMT due to encroachments along the tracks, dumped garbage and drainage line.

The CR has gotten rid of the 7 BHEL-made rakes that have been troubling the CR for a long time. These 20-year-plus rakes are undergoing technical improvements inside the motor coaches. The officials said that they are changing the capacitors inside them which restricts the failure of machines inside the coach. According to sources, several capacitors need to be changed which could take at least 20 days for each coach.

Source: DNA