22/01/2013
VENTILATION ON NEW MUMBAI lOCAL TRAINS IS JUST BIG TALK
The railways’ tall claims of providing better ventilation in the new trains seem to have fallen flat. Commuters are complaining that the powerful blowers in the new Rs20 crore state-of-the-art local trains, manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory at Chennai, have become an example of how a new technology can go wrong.
The blowers that were supposed to pump in 14,535 cubic metres of fresh air per hour inside each coach to maintain stringent standards of air quality for level of carbon dioxide inside a crowded train just make noise and there is very little air pumped out.
Railway officials said the design of the ventilation system is such that it will function only if the train carries full load. “It will not function if there are less than 50 passengers in a coach. If the number was more than 50, the system will function partially.
However, if there are more than 200 commuters in a coach, then it will get activated and work in full capacity,” a top railway official said
It has sensors that control the functioning of the ventilation system to save power when the train is not fully loaded. The blowers in the local train have been installed in the train at a cost of Rs3 lakh per coach, taking the total cost in a single 12-car train to Rs36 lakh.
The authorities had conducted a series of cardio tests in a crowded Virar-fast local. The carbon dioxide levels in a new train ranged between 800 and 1,400 parts per million as against the 1,400 to 2,400 parts per million in the existing trains. If the range reaches above 5,000 ppm, a person will start gasping and if it reaches 10,000, it can be fatal.
The railways has adopted global standards of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers that recommends that maximum indoor carbon dioxide concentration should be less than 700 parts per million above the outdoor air concentration.
