Mumbai's central railway to deface trains for revenue

After spending lakhs on the design and aesthetic look of its new-age trains, the Central Railway on Saturday decided to cover its entire fleet of 44 with vinyl wrappers to earn money.

The railways had spent a large amount of public money on meticulously designing the violet suburban train by contracting experts from the prestigious National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad.

But the railways maintain the move won’t affect aesthetics. “We are not covering the entire train, just the space under the windows. This will earn us a revenue of Rs5.3 crore annually. The wrappers will not damage the exteriors of the train and will be maintained with care,” CR’s chief spokesperson Vidyadhar Malegaonkar said.

Two years ago, the World Bank and the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation had affected changes in Mumbai’s trains to give city commuters a break from the monotony of colours, and had hired design experts to work on signage and paint colour for standardisation.

The violet colour with an orange band was chosen for its royal look and better aesthetics. Officials said the NID finalised the new white-and-violet colour combination after a lot of research. Officials said the new colour scheme will best reflect the vibrant character of the metropolis.

The NID had taken a scientific approach in selecting the new colours. NID was given 10 points of reference to come up with the final colour scheme, including the spirit of Mumbai, commuters’ perception about trains, existing trains, trends in public transport, and colour techniques.

The first CR train was wrapped up in an advertisement of Haldirams in December. The Western Railway has decided not to paint over the new trains as yet.

Ironically, the railways are spending more funds on designing the new batch of 76 trains Mumbai will receive under the second phase of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) from 2013 onwards. The interiors of these trains, too, will be multi-coloured with seats and other accessories in bright and attractive colours. But if the zonal railways decide to wrap them in vinyl sheets, all the money spent along with the looks will go down the drain.

At present, commercial publicity earning by advertisements on local trains from April to November last year was Rs206.95 lakh, an increase of 92% over the Rs107.70 lakh earned during the same period the year before.