By Apurva Bhatt

The much delayed DC to AC traction conversion on the Central Railway(CR) will soon be completed. Although Suresh Prabhu avoided questions about the delayed DC to AC traction conversion a CR official said the technical aspects of the project were finished and it is awaiting the railway board’s nod, likely to come by next week.

The project which has missed several deadlines and is delayed has caused CR much more. The Bombardier trains, which carries more passengers the WR will get the advantage of plying the brand-new trains until CR catches up with them. An official said, on condition of anonymity, “When the new trains arrive the CR has no chances of running them as the trains are designed to run only in AC sections. So, again the WR will get the advantage even though they carry 30 lakh passengers daily while we carry 42 lakh.”

This has also had a bearing on the work for extension of Harbour line from nine to 12 coaches as officials are aware that the extra three coaches to be added will not be available until the CR is in a position to hand over their old rakes. They say this is only possible when they have any rakes to spare, since the three coaches per train will be taken from the current coaches plying on the mainline.

“The conversion is causing a domino effect on the CR, if conversion to AC gets delayed, the new Bombardier rakes cannot ply on our mainline since they are designed for operating only on AC electrical equipment and we are still on DC. This means the old trains that would have to be transferred from the mainline to the Harbour line if we had got the new trains will remain with us as they are required to run our 825 services on the mainline,” the official added.