They said, officials should also consider splitting the existing 12-car AC local and use three of its coaches as an addition to normal trains to not compromise existing services.
The meeting was held at CSMT.
Passenger associations of Central Railway (CR) suggested that the air conditioned (AC) local train should be introduced as an additional service and not replace existing ones. They also came up with demands of installing mobile charging points and CCTV cameras onboard the new AC local.
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They said, officials should also consider splitting the existing 12-car AC local and use three of its coaches as an addition to normal trains to not compromise existing services.
Though the first train service is going to be introduced on the Trans-Harbour Thane-Vashi-Panvel line, a few commuter organisations demanded that after three months, the train should be plied on the Badlapur-Ambernath section too.
“We had an amicable meeting and we were told that the train will be introduced on the Thane-Vashi-Panvel sector on New Year’s Day 2020. We suggested them to have ticket checkers onboard the train so that even if a first-class commuter gets in the train, he could continue the journey by paying the difference of fare,” Subhash Gupta, Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee member said. The fare of the AC train will be 1.3 times the base fare of first class as decided by the railway board.
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