Central Railway may not be able to switch from DC to AC by March end

Central Railway (CR) may not be able to switch from 1,500 volt direct current to 25,000 volt alternating current up to Thane before the end of the financial year.

Central Railway (CR) may not be able to switch from 1,500 volt direct current to 25,000 volt alternating current up to Thane before the end of the financial year.

HT Image

CR officials said Western Railway (WR), which plans to extend suburban services to Dahanu before March end, has not supplied them the dual current rakes.

As the CR already missed the January 26 deadline, officials wanted to at least complete the project before the end of March.

A senior CR official said, “According to the railway board’s directives, WR was supposed to give us four DC-AC rakes.”

CR needs at least 20 dual current rakes, which can ply on both DC as well as AC.

However, WR officials claimed the board has asked them to give only three rakes to CR.

CR officials said that they will neither accept BHEL rakes, as they are more prone to failure, nor accept the new pure AC rakes as they are slow and do not work on DC.

According to CR officials, it seems impossible to switch to AC till Thane before the end of the month as WR has said that it cannot transfer all the rakes before March 21. Each rake will need at least 4-5 days for internal modification before they can start running.

After conversion, the travel time between Thane and Kalyan is likely to be cut down by five to seven minutes.

WR officials said their priority is to introduce new rakes up to Dahanu before March end, for which they too, require some rakes.