Railway officials said that a joint team of BHEL and the RDSO had begun fitting the 12 coaches of the rake with sensors and other testing apparatus to start the oscillation trials.
Almost a year after Mumbai's first air-conditioned local train arrived at Kurla carshed in April 2016, a team of experts from the Research Development Standards Organisation (RDSO) — the railway's apex technical authority— arrived in the city on Wednesday to start the rake's trials. DNA, in its March 9 edition, had stated that the trials would begin once the team arrived on March 15.
Railway officials said that a joint team of BHEL and the RDSO had begun fitting the 12 coaches of the rake with sensors and other testing apparatus to start the oscillation trials. A senior CR official on Thursday evening said that if all goes according to plan, the rake could be put on trial by the early hours of Friday. Oscillation trials are to be carried out for assessing the speed potential, the riding quality, and stability at different speeds on straight and curved tracks of the route. A railway ministry official said that the oscillation trials might take up to a month, after which performance trials will begin. The performance or service trials —that will begin after an all-clear from the oscillation trials— will consist of running the train in real-time conditions using loaded gunny sacks to replicate the weight of passengers.
However, the performance trials could take 4-5 months or even more, the railway ministry official said. Therefore, the chances of the AC rake being commissioned late 2017 or even early 2018 cannot be ruled out, said officials.
The trials, delayed for months now, are to be conducted on the Central as well as Western Railway, after which the railway ministry will take a call on which railway will run the rake.
The rake has been built at a cost of Rs 54 crore. Its electrical systems and the Train Control and Management System have been jointly built by BHEL and Netherlands-based Strukton under a transfer of technology arrangement the former has with the Dutch firm.
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