Mumbai : Harbour Line commuters between Andheri and CST who have always felt sidelined as they have been thrust up with only old brown and yellow rakes have a reason to smile; by March, they may have the new Siemens rakes shuttling on their lines.

This projected move is interlinked with complete traction power switchover from 1,500 volts direct current (DC) to 25,000 volts alternating current (AC) on the Western Line, which is in turn interconnected with the arrival of the balance 30 plus rakes from the first phase of the Mumbai Urban Transport project (MUTP-I).

For WR commuters, the good news is that 27 more new rakes will be pumped into its network by March, which means that nearly every rake on the WR will be a white and purple one. Since WR would replace its old DC rakes with AC-DC ones, it would `donate' 15 rakes to its counterpart, Central Railway (CR), while retrofitting the 10. Officials said the CR fleet is old and many of these transferred rakes would be used to help the older ones to retire.

Retrofitting is the process in which the electrics in a DC rake are changed to make them AC-DC compatible. The train's interiors are changed to match the new Siemens rakes while the coach shell is retained. A train which has a residual life of more than 10 years is eligible for the process, which costs the railways around Rs 4.5 crore per rake. Retrofitment of WR rakes will start in December.

The initial deadline for the entire WR suburban section to switch to AC was November, which has now been pushed back to anytime between December and March as it was directly linked with the arrival of the new rakes.

"The first priority of WR is to replace its old DC rakes so that DC-AC is successful. We will then look at converting all its services from 9-car to 12-car and introduce more 15-car trains,'' said Chief PRO, WR, S S Gupta.

At present, of the 1,210 services run by WR, 432 are 9-car while one 15-car trains does 12 services. "Since AC is more powerful, there will be a huge capacity enhancement by March and 9-car rakes will all be augmented within two months of March,'' said Gupta.