Four companies namely Bhel, Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier have bid for a railway contract to convert several suburban trains (called Electrical Multiple Unit rakes) of Mumbai to AC\DC from the existing DC technology.
The companies have bid for the Rs 250 crore project that will make suburban rail travel in the megalopolis a bit more easy. According to sources the bids which were opened yesterday will take about four to six months to be evaluated. The Railways have set no reserve price for the bids.
According to the contract the companies will convert the existing EMU rakes which run only on Direct Current technology to be compatible with Alternating Current technology.
This has become necessary as the Railways are converting their overhead traction to AC all over the country. The conversion work in Mumbai has already started. The move will mean all the rakes can now be used over the entire stretch of Mumbai suburban railways and passengers will not have to cross over from DC to AC over head traction.
The BHEL bid is part of the consortium that includes Autometers Alliance Ltd, Ansaldobroeda of Italy.
Since the railways do not have the technology to convert the EMU rakes to AC\DC compatible mode it had called for the present bids. It has already got one set of EMUs converted in 198 when BHEL and Alstom converted 62 and 38 units respectively to AC\DC mode.
