Overcrowding leads to malfunctioning AC in locals: Railways

This is not the first time an AC local suffered a lapse. There have been at least three breakdowns in a month.

Mumbai: The air conditioning of a Virar-Churchgate local train failed at Mira Road on Monday morning. The train escorting staff (a team of technicians present in an AC local at all times to fix flaws) was able to correct the glitch only after the local had reached Bandra. At around 6:30 pm, a CSMT-Kalyan fast local’s AC malfunctioned, leading passengers to complain when it was not set right till Bhandup.

Officers of Central and Western railways put down the reason of failed air conditioning to overcrowding. Each coach of a local has two 15 tonne AC units inside, which are not enough in capacity to hold up against the summer heat. Monday’s breakdowns generated much social media buzz from frustrated commuters. (Bhushan Koyande)

This is not the first time an AC local suffered a lapse. There have been at least three breakdowns in a month.

Officers of Central and Western railways put down the reason of failed air conditioning to overcrowding. Each coach of a local has two 15 tonne AC units inside, which are not enough in capacity to hold up against the summer heat. Monday’s breakdowns generated much social media buzz from frustrated commuters.

“Our engineers are working to ensure that repairs are carried out immediately, which becomes difficult in peak hours,” said a WR official, in response.

An AC in a coach, which is 800-odd square feet long, can take the crush load (number of passengers, in railway parlance) of eight passengers per square meter. During peak hours the crush load doubles to 16, which the railways refers as “super dense crush load”.

“There are in fact staff placed inside these AC locals, who get on the job immediately. At times even the door closing becomes an issue which takes an additional five to seven seconds to open and close,” said another railway staff.

On Monday, WR took the flawed train off the run and introduced a regular local in the AC schedule for the evening Churchgate-Virar.

Western Railway operates 79 AC local services on weekdays, catering to an average of approximately 90,000 commuters per day. On WR, daily average AC local commuters stood at over 66,600 in September last year. On CR, in September 2022, there were 46,000-odd daily commuters while now the average is around 70,000 commuters.