Emergency Window - RailFans love it. Why? Go figure. - Anubharadwaj Maharshi

Harbour line to get 10 more services from this week
Mumbai: Ten Harbour line services will be launched this week as the entire stretch has been converted from 1500 V DC to 25 KV AC traction, Central Railway general manager S K Sood said on Sunday. This will be possible with the introduction of a new rake. High voltage traction means greater speed, reliability, fewer breakdowns, power-saving, increase in carrying capacity and more rakes can be introduced in future. "We plan an additional service each during the morning and evening peak hours, and the rest spread through the day," Sood said, while lauding his team's efforts in completing the DC-AC conversion on Harbour and Trans-Harbour one-and-a-half hours before the deadline on...
more...

Sunday. The addition of 10 services will mean carrying 50,000-60,000 passengers more on the Harbour line daily. CR will introduce Siemens rakes, which have a better design, ambience and ventilation, on the Harbour line apart from a few retrofitted rakes. The trial run of the air-conditioned rake, brought from ICF, Chennai, will be possible by the weekend, sources said. The 12-car rakes will be introduced on the Harbour line within a month.
Sood said, "Now, all rakes on Harbour will be slightly faster, with the maximum speed probably being 100kmph, and reliability will improve only after five to seven days." He stated that the DC-AC conversion will mean fewer breakdowns like OHE wire problems or unit defects. "Commuters can expect almost zero breakdowns on the Harbour line from April 18," he said. Though Sood was optimistic, a senior official said, "We want to warn commuters of problems in the short-term even though we have left nothing to chance. Overhead equipment (OHE) related failures were more frequent in the weeks soon after the traction switched between CST-Thane." However, in the long term the gains are immense. Another official doubted if the switch-over could lead to improvement in speed. The DC rakes have a speed limit of 80kmph, while the Siemens rakes can clock 100kmph. But the Harbour line corridor is not fit to run on 100kmph. Moreover, since it caters only to slow services, the speed cannot be increased as stations are at shorter distance, forcing the motorman to frequently accelerate and decelerate, the official stated. The average speed will remain 38-40kmph even after introduction of the new rakes. A daily commuter said, "Travelling by Harbour has been frustrating. We had 25-year-old rakes which were uncomfortable. Besides, trains often ran behind schedule and there were frequent breakdowns." Any breakdown in services puts immense pressure on the Harbour and Trans-harbour corridor, which only has a slow corridor. But the last old DC rake (1500 V traction) was terminated at CST on Sunday night and it was, as railway officials said, the "end of an era".
click here
historic moment great effort by CR team
end of old DC traction era and bye bye DC emu.
welcome AC traction :)