India, Aug. 5 -- Two years after tenders to procure air-conditioned (AC) locals were floated and quickly withdrawn (the railways could not furnish cogent reasons for it), the Indian Railways (IR) cleared the decks to procure 238 AC local trains. On Monday, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Railway Board, Satish Kumar, held a series of meetings with officials from the central railways (CR) and western railways (WR) to chalk out the modalities of the way forward.

Kumar also announced that the prototype of an automatic door closure mechanism in non-AC local trains will be ready by December and made operational gradually.

AC locals for Mumbai

The need for more AC local trains in Mumbai's suburban network has been gainin...