Monorail to get three more trains

MUMBAI: Now, you can expect smooth operations on the monorail from Wadala to Chembur as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has managed

MUMBAI: Now, you can expect smooth operations on the monorail from Wadala to Chembur as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has managed to bring in three more trains into service, taking the number of functional rakes to four. Its services were affectedly badly in the past, at times leading to complete halt of services in case of technical snag, as there was only one active rake in operation.

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Although MMRDA had procured 10 trains, nine were not in operation as they were cannibalised for the lack of spare parts in the market.

“Now, we have procured the required spare parts and made three functional rakes. Now there will not be any delay in case any rake breaks down. We can press the new rakes into service immediately,” said a MMRDA official.

In the past, monorail services were affected badly owing to technical glitches. Since there were just one or two monorail rakes available, it would take MMRDA several hours to restore services to normalcy. Generally, the MMRDA needs two to three monorails to carry out services on the 8.8-km Chembur-Wadala phase smoothly at a frequency of 15-30 minutes.

With a fourth rake in service now, the MMRDA can replace a failed rake with a new one swiftly.

Interestingly, the development occurred at a time when the MMRDA has initiated trial runs for the second phase, 11.2km Wadala- Jacob Circle stretch. MMRDA conducted trial runs on the 3-km Wadala- Acharya Atre Nagar stretch this Independence Day.

According to the plan, MMRDA needs 15-16 rakes when the entire 20-km Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle corridor is made operational so as to achieve the frequency of 4 minutes.

The 20-km Chembur- Wadala-Jacob Circle monorail corridor is planned to be constructed in two phases. As per the original deadline, the first phase — from Chembur to Wadala (8.8km) was supposed to be ready by December 2010.

After missing several deadlines, it was opened to the public in February 2014. The second phase — from Wadala to Jacob circle (12.2 km) — is expected to start by early next year.