MUMBAI: The Central Railway successfully completed the conversion of the overhead power supply system from 1500 Volt DC to 25,000 Volt AC traction on the rail route connecting CST and Thane.
This conversion was carried out from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai (CSTM) to Mumbra (inclusive) on slow corridor and CSTM to Thane (exclusive) on fast corridor.
"This is nothing short of an achievement considering the fact that our engineers did it without disturbing current services and creating trouble for the 42 lakh commuters in their day-to-day travelling," said Narendra Patil, chief PRO of Central Railway.
Despite rains yesterday, CR authorities went ahead with the conversion work and it was finally completed this morning, he added.
"This smooth and major transition has been achieved without any major disruption or inconvenience to the
travelling public," he said.
The total cost of the project is Rs 1,299.91 crore, including for the conversion of the CST-Panvel route on
Harbour line.
DC to AC conversion work has already been completed for Vasai-Diva-Jasai, Panvel-Karjat, Igatpuri-Kalyan and Pune–Kalyan, Kalyan-Thane fast corridor and Thane-LTT section on the 5th and 6th Lines.
The PR department of Central Railway said among the major benefits of the conversion are that seamless operations would be ensured on 25,000 Volt electric traction services for mail/express trains (including non-daily), coming/going from Igatpuri side and Lonavala side to CST and vice-versa.
"There will be 33 per cent energy saving due to regenerative braking of new generation EMU trains; time saving as new generation EMU runs at 100-kmph as compared to DC EMU at 80-kmph," Central Railway said in a release here.
Mumbai suburban section (Mumbai CST to Kalyan) was electrified in 1925 with a 1500 DC traction system, the only modern traction system available at the time.
For 90 years, this system was catering to the suburban commuter services despite the fact that the number of such services had gone up 100-fold with sophisticated trains having been roped in. Hence, additional power was required.
"The 1500 Volt DC system was not able to handle any further additional power requirement. Space availability for additional sub-stations also posed a serious limitation.
"History has been created by executing this challenging work of very complex nature in the busiest network of Indian Railways without any disruption to sensitive commuter traffic," it said.
However, officials have cautioned commuters that switching from DC to AC would result in some delays as speed restrictions have been imposed at three spots.
"Services would be a bit delayed as speed restrictions have been imposted at Hancock bridge near Sandhurst Road station, at a viaduct near Byculla and at Parsik Tunnel between Thane and Mumbra stations. Here, our trains would be running at a restricted speed of 15 kmph," said Patil.
