The Harbour line will see a night block on March 12 night/early March 13 from 12.00 am to 6.00 am as Central Railway (CR) officials will be conducting tests for the long-awaited Direct Current (DC) to
The Harbour line will see a night block on March 12 night/early March 13 from 12.00 am to 6.00 am as Central Railway (CR) officials will be conducting tests for the long-awaited Direct Current (DC) to Alternate Current (AC) conversion.
The conversion will be finished by March 26 or 27 but this also means that increasing the number of coaches from nine to 12 on Harbour will not be completed by March 31 as expected earlier, as a lot of work on that front is still left incomplete.
Elaborating on the block that will be taken on Saturday night, a senior railway official on the condition of anonymity said, “As a result of the test charging block, the trains on the Harbour will be shut from 12.00 am and trains on the Trans-harbour will also be unavailable. So Harbour line commuters have to make sure that they do not get stuck as a result of this. Also we won’t be able to see 12-coach on Harbour until April.”
The CR had taken one of the longest blocks on Harbour from February 19 to 22 and another block is expected to be taken on March 26 or 27 for the final conversion to AC.
“On the next weekend we will call in the Commissioner of Railway Safety and if he finds that all the issues have been taken care of, the Harbour line will be running on AC (25,000 volts) by March 28 at the latest,” added the official.
The Harbour line has witnessed three rail rokos after the 72-hour block since commuters felt that despite the vast time period taken for the block, services have almost always been late after resumption of services.
Apurva Varadharajan (25) a graphic designer who resides at Seawoods and travels to Andheri, said, “The Andheri trains have almost always been late on the Harbour after this 72-hour block. It has been just a few days that they have been running on time and now again this block, which I hope does not mean the services go for a toss again.”
Harbour line is now the only line in the country that still operates on DC traction of 1,500 volts dating back to 91 years.
