AC stops functioning in Churchgate-bound Mumbai local; commuters bring train to halt

Mumbai: A section of commuters travelling in the Churchgate-bound AC suburban train pulled the chain and brought the local to a halt at Andheri station on Friday morning after finding that the air-conditioning was “not functioning”. The passengers of some coaches of the Virar-Churchgate local train said they experienced suffocation and sweating due to the non-functioning AC. “Ever since the local train left Borivali station, we found that the coach was not cooling. Initially we thought that the AC would start soon. But despite crossing few stations on the way, there was no sign of it,” a passenger said. “Since the doors of the coaches of this particular local have to be kept shut for air-conditioning, there was no ventilation, which led to suffocation and sweating. When it became unbearable, we pulled the chain and made the local stop,” he added. [caption id=“attachment_4570721” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The air-conditioning in Churchgate-bound Mumbai train stopped working on Friday. Twitter@WesternRly[/caption] “Due to the technical problem in working of AC in 3 coaches of AC local, the services of AC local has been cancelled today till further repairs. Inconvenience to commuters is highly regretted please (sic),” the said in its tweet. Chief spokesperson of Western Railway, Ravinder Bhakar, said the train operations will start as soon as the technical problems in the three coaches are fixed. “Otherwise, it will remain off for the entire day,” he said. Even last Friday, the Western Railway had cancelled the AC train service for maintenance work.