The Central Railway today successfully completed the conversion of the overhead power supply system from 1500 Volt DC to 25,000 Volt AC traction on the rail route connecting CST and Thane.
This conversion was carried out from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai (CSTM) to Mumbra (inclusive) on slow corridor and CSTM to Thane (exclusive) on fast corridor.
"This is nothing short of an achievement considering the fact that our engineers did it without disturbing current services and creating trouble for the 42 lakh commuters in their day-to-day travelling," said Narendra Patil, chief PRO of Central Railway.
Despite rains yesterday, CR authorities went ahead with the conversion work and it was finally completed this morning, he added.
"This smooth and major transition has been achieved without any major disruption or inconvenience to the travelling public," he said.
The total cost of the project is Rs 1,299.91 crore, including for the conversion of the CST-Panvel route on Harbour line.
DC to AC conversion work has already been completed for Vasai-Diva-Jasai, Panvel-Karjat, Igatpuri-Kalyan and Pune- Kalyan, Kalyan-Thane fast corridor and Thane-LTT section on the 5th and 6th Lines.
The PR department of Central Railway said among the major benefits of the conversion are that seamless operations wpuld be ensured on 25,000 Volt electric traction services for mail/express trains (including non-daily), coming/going from Igatpuri side and Lonavala side to CST and vice-versa.
"There will be 33 per cent energy saving due to regenerative braking of new generation EMU trains; time saving as new generation EMU runs at 100-kmph as compared to DC EMU at 80-kmph," Central Railway said in a release here.
Mumbai suburban section (Mumbai CST to Kalyan) was electrified in 1925 with a 1500 DC traction system, the only modern traction system available at the time.
