The chief spokesperson of the western railway, Mr. Ravinder Bhakar said that the last technical trial run was conducted on yesterday in the presence of the senior railway officers and it was successful. They flagged off first air-conditioned local services today with a Borivali-Churchgate service commenced at 10:30 am.
Briefing about the ticket fare, they said that the base fare of the single journey of AC local will be 1.3 times of the base fare of existing fare of the first class ticket. The run was in between Churchgate and Virar from today. The first service of the 12-coach EMU commenced at 2.10 pm between Andheri and Churchgate.
The local was brought to Mumbai station from Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory, in April 2015. After almost 2 years of trials at Kurla and Virar car-sheds in Mumbai, the rake has been inducted into service today.
As per yesterday’s statement of Mr. R Bhakar “As a new year bonanza for Mumbai people, the first AC local train will be introduced on December 25, 2017. This services will replace twelve existing non-AC services, hence the total number of suburban services on Western Railway’s suburban section will remain 1,355, even after the introduction of the Air-conditioned (AC) local.
As per the pre-New Year bonanza, it has been started at Andheri on Western Railway at 2.10 p.m. and reached Churchgate at 2.45 pm. After this introductory run session, 6 return services will be operated on the suburban sector on all days in a week except, Saturday-Sunday. These days will be kept free for maintenance purposes, said WR chief spokesperson Mr. Bhakar.
Charting out the train’s operational routine one senior officer said that out of these twelve daily services, 8 will be operated on congested Churchgate-Virar sector, 3 between Churchgate-Borivali, both with halts at major stations like Mumbai Central, Dadar, Bandra, Andheri, Borivali & Vasai Road in both directions., while 1 will ply as a slow service halting at all stations between Mahalaxmi and Borivali.
Although the base fare of the single journey of AC local is 1.3 times of the base fare of existing fare of the single journey first class ticket, the base fare of the single journey of AC EMU will be charged 1.2 times. “For example, the present base fare of a single journey between Churchgate and Virar in the first class is Rs 170 INR, then according to this formula, the base fare for AC local turns out to be Rs 204 INR for the initial 6 months. Later it will be revised to Rs 221, based on fare calculation model”.
In this statement, they also said weekly, fortnightly, monthly and bi-monthly season tickets will be charged equivalent to 5, 7.5 and 10 single journeys of AC local respectively. They also added that no other type of season tickets will be issued for the time being and that Air Conditioned (AC) local ticket holders will be allowed to travel in the 1st class compartments of non-Air Conditioned local trains.
