Big Relief For Mumbai Commuters: Soon 15 Coach Local Trains To Manage City’s ‘Super-Dense Crush Load’

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has asked officials to come up with a plan to convert all Mumbai local trains into 15-coach trains within two weeks, Mumbai Mirror has reported. The instruction was given by the minister at a meeting with officials in the state guest house ‘Sahyadri’.

“We want all local trains in Mumbai to be 15-coach trains. It will increase the capacity of the railways by 25 per cent. First up, we want the fast corridors on both Central line and Western line converted to 15-coach trains. This will be extended to the slow line”, the minister told Mumbai Mirror.

Currently, 12-coach trains in Mumbai carry a load of 5,500 passengers during peak hours though their capacity is 3,000. This is same as cramming 16 people in on square feet. Officials have coined the term ‘super-dense crush load’ to describe this scenario. A 15-coach train can carry 4,200 passengers.

Fifty-four out of 1365 services run by the Western Railways are handled by 15-coach trains. Central Railways which runs Mumbai suburban network has only one 15-coach train among its fleet of 133 rakes.