Commuters can look forward to less rush in trains from October 15 onwards as the Central Railway will introduce 16 services of 15-car local trains on its suburban network.
“We have made a conscious effort to include 15-car services to ease the rush in local trains. Necessary technical and infrastructure changes have been made,” said Mr V.A. Malegaonkar, chief public relations officer, CR.
A 15-car local train has 33 per cent more carrying capacity than the 12-car trains.
CR officials stated that all the 15-car services will run as fast locals and will halt at Byculla, Dadar, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Mulund, Thane and Dombivali stations. There will be two new services from Thane to Badlapur and Ambernath and one new service from Kurla to Titwala. With this, the total number of services on the mainline (CST-Kayan) will increase from 785 to 803. The total fast services will increase from 206 to 233. In order to run the services, the CR executed works of extending the platform, construction of cover sheds, relocation of overhead equipment and shifting of signals.
Long trains help authorities minimise overcrowding during peak hours. The CR has already converted the entire fleet of nine-car locals to 12-cars. Running a 15-car train on a slow track would not be an easy task as several stations would have to be upgraded to accommodate the train. The decision to run the trains only after the monsoon was made as the cover sheds are yet to be constructed.
Fifteen-car services are being run on the Western Railway since 2009 but they were yet to be introduced on CR. Initially, the service was introduced between Dadar and Virar that was later extended up to Churchgate after the extension of platforms was completed.