Following a major incident in Mumbai where at least four passengers were killed on Monday after falling from moving local trains, Railway Board said that all trains being manufactured for Mumbai Suburban will have automatic door-closer facilities. These coaches will be manufactured by Indian Railways’ manufacturing unit Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.

Railway Board, which is the apex decision-making body of Ministry of Railways, also decided that apart from new rakes, the possibilities should be explored to provide door closure facilities in old rakes in service.

A senior official of Ministry of Railways said that for installing automatic doors, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Railway Board officials held a detailed meeting with a team of ICF, Chennai.

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“The purpose was to find a practical solution to the issue of automatic door closing in local non-AC trains in Mumbai. The major issue with automatic door closing in non-AC trains is suffocation because of reduced ventilation. We found that due to this CO2 increases by 2.5 times. After detailed discussions, it was decided that new non-AC trains will be designed and manufactured where the key issue of ventilation will be resolved using three design changes,” said the official.

According to the new design, the doors will have louvers and the coaches will have roof-mounted ventilation units to pump in fresh air. Along with this, the coaches will have vestibules so that passengers can move from one coach to another and balance out the crowd in a natural way.

Indian Railway runs a total of 3,200 location trains in Mumbai suburban daily. Out of this, 1810 trains are run by Central Railway and 1406 local trains are run by Western Railway. On an average, 66 lakh passengers use Mumbai local to commute daily.

“The first train of this new design will be ready by November 2025. After necessary tests and certification, it will be put into service by January 2026. This is in addition to the 238 AC trains being manufactured for Mumbai suburban services,” said the official.

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Dilip Kumar, executive director (Information & Publicity), Ministry of Railways, said that the initial investigation shows that passengers were travelling on footboard, which is always dangerous.

“Today’s incident is extremely tragic. We regularly discourage people from using footboard or boarding the running train. We are moving towards the long-term solution for such problems. Because of this, the Railway Board has decided that from now onwards, all new trainsets for Mumbai Suburban will have closed-door facility to avoid any such incidents. Along with this, the Board has commissioned a detailed study to find out the possibility of providing closed-door facility in local trains in service. We have introduced a few AC trains in Mumbai Suburban and they have closed-door facility,” said Kumar.

The incident took place early in the morning, when eight passengers fell from a local train between Diva and Mumbra stations. Railways have initiated an inquiry to find out the exact cause of the incident. However, there has not been any announcement of ex gratia in the incident so far.