The Railway Board, the apex body of all zonal railways, has decided to convert the suburban train coaches to AC coaches after consulting Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), Central and Western Railway officials.
The Western Railway has planned to convert all Mumbai’s local trains to air-conditioned (AC) trains. The Railway Board, the apex body of all zonal railways, has decided to convert the suburban train coaches to AC coaches after consulting Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), Central and Western Railway officials on Tuesday.
The fares are also likely to be reduced and will be based on the fare structure of metros.
Recently, the Western Railway conducted a survey among local train commuters of the Mumbai Suburban network and tried to know about their preference for a change in local trains services.
Alok Kansal, General Manager of Western railway said the people who participated in the survey opted for an increase in AC local rail services.
Ravi Agarwal, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) said they are planning to procure all fully AC local trains for the Mumbai suburban railway network under the Mumbai Urban Transport Projects (MUTP).
As per the daily, the MRVC will be buying 283 new AC local trains in the coming days. At present, Mumbai has nine AC trains running on a suburban network. However, the fare is higher even than the first-class coaches. The first suburban AC local train was operated on the Western Railway on December 25, 2017. The train service is operational between Churchgate and Virar railway stations.
Earlier the railway authorities had planned semi-AC trains comprising first, second and AC coaches to increase the frequency. However, the Railway Board is now planning to covert the entire fleet of trains into AC trains.
A railway official said that all new local trains which will be brought to Mumbai for the suburban train network would be AC trains.
The fares of the suburban AC local trains train will be based on the structure by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority(MMRDA) or the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).
