Only one rake in January 2010

As expected, wheel shortage has indeed hit the production. Only one new rake was despatched from ICF in the month of January 2010. No new rakes have been despatched in the last 25 days.

A few tidbits

Here is another defect of the rakes, which I had seen many times in the past but was not able to capture it on camera. Windows of the same coach are not aligned in a straight line.

Meanwhile, I have received reports of seats sagging in first class. This leads to a difference in levels of seats at joints (only in case of long seat for 7 people). This difference makes sitting on the joint uncomfortable. Hence people refuse to sit on the joint. As a result only 7 passengers can be accommodated on the seat whose length is sufficient to confortably accommodate 8 passengers.

On the other hand, there has been an improvement too. Rake number 1093-1096 has improved design of luggage racks. The improvements are: a. Increase in overall width; b. Reduction in the distance between two rods of the rack so that small items do not fall down. Again, this was suggested to MRVC in November 2007. It took 2 years to implement this miniscule change.

WR gets a rake!

ICF has despatched a rake for WR on 11/01/2010. This rake comes after a gap of 4 months during which rakes were allotted to CR. It remains to be seen how many rakes WR gets in this batch.

Siemens Ban won’t matter, says MRVC

Please see the following article (click on it for larger version):

Mr Sehgal seems to think that ban on Siemens (and the subsequent need for totally new traction equipment) will not have any effect on the production of rakes. He seems to have forgotten that in case they appoint a new supplier it will take at least 3 years for the equipment to be ready. And in the hurry to meet deadlines, there is a real chance of many glaring issues surfacing in the equipment, just like the Traction Motor & software problems in Siemens equipment. If such major issues surface for the second time, it would be a major catastrophe. I think its time to move back to BHEL made equipment of 3xx rakes. I agree that it will be like taking a step backward from IGBT to GTO, but the technology is proven, time tested and problem free. The initial niggles have been taken care of. So, if a new manufacturer is decided, it will mean 3-4 years for designing and testing the new traction equipment. But if they use the existing Traxx designed, BHEL manufactured equipment, time required for designing and testing will be ZERO. Production can start immediately after coach shell design is finalised.

On another note, for the first time ever in the last 2-3 years, PC Sehgal has been quoted saying 129 12 car rakes. Otherwise it would be just the misleading “174 rakes”. I am happy that he has finally stopped misleading the general public, who has the media as the only source of information. Effect of this post, perhaps?

Finally, the fact that there will be just 129 rakes makes one thing crystal clear. If either WR or CR wants to convert to AC fully without waiting for rakes of MUTP-2, they HAVE to convert many existing DC rakes to AC/DC. If not, then conversion will not see the light of the day till 2015.

MUTP-2 rakes run into a roadblock

Mumbai will stop getting new rakes after March 2011, thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of the railway officials.

The officials have failed to identify a company to manufacture various parts of the trains as the current manufacturer, Siemens, has been banned by the World Bank from providing materials to projects funded by the latter.

Read the full article here. The article proves that my deduction that the number of rakes to be manufactured in MUTP-1 is only 130 and not 174.

Wheel shortage again!

Wheel shortage is here again! Barely 15 months after the first shortage of wheels was resolved, MRVC/ICF has run out of wheels for the second time according to this article. So there will be more delays in the induction of rakes now. This only goes on to show the poor planning and management. On one hand they talk of manufacturing 6 rakes per month, and they do not have enough wheels on the other hand!

The article has one more bluff by Mr Sehgal. He says that there are 45 additional rakes in Mumbai now, and WR & CR have jointly scrapped 25 rakes. This is a flat lie. WR alone has scrapped more than 20-25 rakes. On WR, out of the 44 rakes only seven rakes have been used as additional rakes. The rest have been used as replacements for overaged rakes.

Finally a change in the design

Finally MRVC has shown some signs of waking up. Please read this news article. Quoting an excerpt:

Following complaints by women commuters that they have no privacy in the new silver-purple trains, the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), in Chennai, which manufactures these trains has now decided to separate the ladies’ and gent’s compartments with opaque sheets.

Women commuters had complained that the iron rods that exist in the current trains allowed men to peep into their compartments leaving them feeling very uncomfortable. ICF is making the changes in its 75th train, which is currently under production.

What is harrowing is the fact that it has taken MRVC 75 rakes before implementing the change. I had suggested this change in less than a week after the first rake was introduced.

UPDATE: As per this news report, many more changes are going to be implemented in the design. Prominent ones amongst them being increase in legroom and changes in design of luggage rack. As you can see, all of them are the ones I, along with a close friend had suggested way back in November 2007 (see this post on the blog). Was MRVC sleeping for two years? What happened to those vehement denials which MRVC officers would blurt out whenever the shortcomings were brought to their notice? What caused the sudden change of heart? Now 75 rakes have already been turned out with the faulty design. I am afraid, these measures are too little, too late.

Grand plans for MUTP-2

Here is an article from Times of India which elaborates on the grandiose plans of MRVC for rakes to be procured under MUTP phase 2.

If all goes as planned, Mumbai could get as many as six new Siemens-Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) 12-car rakes every month. That is, if both Central and Western railways agree to standard coaches under the second phase of MUTP.

In my opinion, at this stage it is very difficult to have a standard coach configuration for WR and CR. Modifying the existing coaches will take huge amounts of time and money. Moreover the modifications cannot be carried out over night on all rakes. It will cause great hardships and inconvenience to commuters during the transition period if half the trains on each railway have one coach configuration and half of them have another one!

Senior officials from the Integral Coach factory (ICF) said they were in talks with MRVC and the MMRDA to jack up production rates. At present, ICF manufactures as many as 72 variations of coaches as both the railways have different coach specifications and positioning.

I wonder how they have 72 different types of coaches for EMUs. Even if we assume that each and every coach in the configuration of WR and CR is unique, there can be maximum 24 types of coaches.

The new rakes will apparently last for 40 years as opposed to the current 25 years. Nothing new in that. There are a few 1969 built EMU coaches still in service on WR. Moreover, I have my doubts about the current rakes lasting 25 years after looking at the condition of some of them in 3 months.

Cost of new rakes will be around Rs 54 Crores, double the cost of present rakes! This presents even more opportunities for kickbacks. It is useless to expect better workmanship from ICF. So be ready for more flimsily built rakes.

Some more cost cutting

Cost cutting has struck the rakes again. This time it is the rain gutter (Channel at the roof level for water to flow off).  The rakes manufactured till now used to have a stainless steel rain gutter. That has been replaced by a conventional iron/aluminium rain gutter now. It was not essential to paint the stainless steel rain gutters, but the conventional ones have to be painted. Have a look in the photos below:

Original design of rain gutter - 1

 

Original design of rain gutter - 2

Revised design of rain gutter. Pic courtesy Tushar Dhake, IRFCA.

15 coach train launch delayed

The launch of the 15 coach local train on WR has been delayed. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was supposed to flag off the train on 13th November 2009, has postponed her visit. The reason for this decision is apparantly the recent warning of cyclone Phyan (I hope I got the spelling right!). I do not know whether this decision was taken by the minister herself or her advisors. But one thing is sure; the reason is absolutely ridiculous! It did not rain at all in Mumbai for 48 hours before her scheduled visi, and the cyclone had fizzled out days before 13th November!

The plethora of other inaugurations too scheduled for 13th November, like a few new trains, Dadar terminus etc have been postponed.  The new date for these inaugurations is not known yet.