Title - Central Railway rolls out 15-car service

At 7.33pm on Tuesday, Central Railway (CR) reached a key milestone as the first 15-car rake meant for its suburban network chugged out of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. The inaugural run marked the end of a long wait among commuters for 15-car rakes, whose capacity is 25% higher than that of 12-car locals, on the CST-Kalyan route. For now, CR will run 16 such services on the Fast corridor, including a few during the peak hours (see box). The station wore a festive look as CR general manager Subodh Jain flagged off the Kalyan-bound Siemens rake from platform number 7. A red carpet was laid at the Masjid end of the platform even as the train was decked up with flowers and a band performed at the station to mark the occasion. The stations where the 15-car rakes will stop include Byculla, Dadar, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Mulund, Thane and Dombivli.

The new rakes give women passengers a lot to cheer about. "We have decided to use two of the three additional bogies as ladies second class and first class coaches. The third coach will be a mix of general second class and general first class," said V A Malegaonkar, chief public relations officer of CR.

Welcoming the move to earmark extra coaches for women, Leela Martin of Kalyan said, "The authorities have done a good job by increasing the capacity for women commuters."

However, a section of commuters was not happy with the configuration. "They should have earmarked more space for general second class passengers. This will not solve the problem of overcrowding," said Prashant Zende, who, too, lives in Kalyan.

Apart from extending the length of platforms, CR had to shift signals and carry out yard remodeling to pave the way for its 15-car services.

Malegaonkar said, "As there was no matching 3-car unit available in the standard 9- and12-car formats, we had to modify the standard units at the Matunga workshop, which was technically quite difficult."

The 15-car service was originally scheduled to make its debut on Monday, but was postponed due to technical reasons.

Western Railway has been running 15-car services on its suburban network since 2009.