New 16 feet dia Bladed Beauty (Giant Fan) installed at CST station

New 16 feet dia Bladed Beauty (Giant Fan) installed at CST station

16 feet dia Bladed Beauty (Giant Fan) installed at CST station

This US-made fan, with a diameter of 16 feet, is on a test-run at CST. Whether CR will invest Rs3.35L on each of these bladed beauties depends on how this one fares.

Mumbai: A fan with the diameter of 16 feet is the Central Railway’s (CR) newest addition at CST to beat the heat and to cut down on electricity expenditure, albeit temporarily.

This fan, manufactured by USA-based MacroAir, is on a testrun at CST. If it passes the careful scrutiny by engineers, then the CR will have to shell out Rs 3.25 lakh for each of these bladed beauties – a cost that CR authorities say can be recovered in three years and is a good bargain as these fans helps in cutting down electricity usage.

At present, the concourse area of the suburban railway station, has 25 conventional fans installed, which uses at least 100 units of electricity on average daily. As per MacroAir’s proposal, these HVLS (High volume, low speed) fans of the AVD3 series, will need only four of them to ventilate the entire area and will consume only 33 units of electricity per day. Apart from this, these fans are also light, noise-free and maintenance-free.

Sources said that besides providing cool air to commuters, these fans will also be beneficial to the railways. Though their initial capital expenditure is higher, maintenance costs will reduce. The fans at railway stations are also sent for monthly maintenance along with the fans installed inside local trains.

Authorities have realised that the fans at these stations do not provide relief to commuters, and will soon install ones with a blade span of 5-7 metres. In a recent inspection, WR authorities realised that the present fans at these two stations barely provided any air to commuters. “There are many people who wait for their respective trains at the concourse, sometimes for long hours. The current lot of fans doesn’t provide the necessary relief. Hence, we are looking at installing new gigantic ones,” said a WR official, on condition of anonymity. The concourses of both stations see thousands of people every day.

Narendra Patil, Chief Public Relations Officer, CR said, “These are noiseless fans that cover large areas. We will take a call after our engineers finish monitoring this fan.”

Apart from this, the CR is also busy upgrading the lighting of the circulating area and the platforms.As of now, 800 LED lights have been put up in the place of old conventional lights in CST, including the platforms, the circulating area and the main-line concourse area. This project involves the replacement of 1,300 lights in total.

Source:RailNews