Mumbai: Nearly 10 months after the June 9 Mumbra accident in which five commuters were killed and nine others fell from a moving overcrowded local train, Mumbai is set to receive India’s first non-AC suburban train with automatic sliding doors, a major safety upgrade aimed at preventing fatalities caused by open-door travel.The 12-coach rake (268201-268212), manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory in Perambur, Chennai, has been dispatched to Mumbai and is expected to arrive this weekend. Railway officials said the rake is currently being moved as an empty special local.The introduction of the train follows a railway safety review ordered after the Mumbra mishap. A five-member committee, set up to probe the incident, identified extreme overcrowding and open doors as the principal causes behind commuters falling off the moving train. The panel recommended closed-door systems on the lines of Metro services, leading to the rollout of this pilot rake.The non-AC train has been specially redesigned for Mumbai conditions, balancing safety with ventilation needs. Unlike AC Metro coaches, the rake features louvred doors to allow natural airflow, roof-mounted ventilators for better air circulation, and vestibule connections that will enable passengers to move between coaches, reducing crowd concentration in individual compartments.Railway officials, though, acknowledged that the door-closing mechanism may initially affect punctuality. Every halt is expected to require extra seconds for doors to open and shut fully, increasing station dwell time.After arrival, the rake will be formally accepted at a station under Central Railway’s Solapur division before being moved to the Kurla carshed for technical checks and commissioning.Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced in Sept 2025 that all future suburban trains built for Mumbai would have closed-door systems introduced in phases.Mumbai’s suburban network earlier experimented with automatic doors. In 2019, Western Railway retrofitted automatic doors in select compartments of a 15-coach local, including first-class, general, ladies and specially abled coaches, at its Mahalaxmi workshop at a cost of Rs 75 lakh.
