The Indian railways says its backend warriors stepped up to the task of maintenance and repairs during the lockdown period.
Abhinav Sahay
New Delhi – India, 02 May 2020. ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’: Railways carries out major track and bridge repairs pending for years during lockdown
The Indian Railways has suffered huge losses due to suspension of passenger train services across the country for the last 40 days due to the lock-down imposed by the Centre to contain the corona-virus outbreak in the country.
However, on the positive side, it has used the break as “a once in a lifetime opportunity” to carry out major maintenance work that was pending for a long time for the want of a repair-window without disrupting the rail services.
The important work undertaken by the railways during the lock-down includes major maintenance works of bridges and tracks besides yard re-modelling and the renewal of scissors crossovers, said a release from the ministry.
These upgrades, pending for several years created bottlenecks in different zones across the country, and were needed to improve safety and operational efficiencies for the Railways, it added.
“Around 500 modern heavy-duty track maintenance machines along with track, signal & overhead equipment (OHE) maintainers have worked regularly for 10,749 machine days to complete overdue track maintenance of 12,270 km plain track and 5263 numbers of turn outs,” the official communication says.
Railways also managed to carry out an ultrasonic flaw detection (USFD) of 30,182 km of track along with 1,34,443 rail welds using USFD machines.
The Railways has been instrumental in maintaining the supply chains all essential commodities running through parcel trains and freight trains along with contributing in a big way to scale up the medical infrastructure needed to combat the spread of coronavirus infection.
“Indian Railways planned these works during lockdown period considering it ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipeout these maintenance arrears and take up the execution of work without affecting the train service,” said the ministry.
The maintenance of assets was taken up regularly to continue the supply chain of essential goods to the public.
“Health of the track has been monitored through periodic runs of oscillation monitoring system (OMS) cumulating 1,92,488 km of track at 5,362 peak locations indicated by OMS test has been attended to ensure proper quality,” the railways added
The work is being carried out ensuring social distancing norms.
Here is a list of pending major track repair work carried out by the national transporter during the lockdown period.
- Renewal of wooden layout Scissors crossover with standard Pre-stress Concrete (PSC) layout in KAZIPET yard (South Central Railway).
- Renewal of Scissors Crossover at Vijayawada Yard with PSC Layout (South Central Railway)
- Repair of Cement Concrete (CC) apron on Line no 1 and 2 at Baroda station (Western Railway).
- Remodelling work in Bangalore City yard (South Western Railway)
Important bridge works carried out during the lock-down period:
- Re-girdering of Bridge No. 86 on Tunga River near Shivamogga Town (South Western Railway)
- Dismantling of Road Over Bridge (ROB) near Chennai Station (Southern Railway)
- Insertion of twin box segments of size 4.65×5.15m for subway in lieu of manned level crossing no. 493 (East Coast Railway)
- Construction of bridge in Rajahmundry-Vishakhapatnam section to cater opening of 4 x 5.5 m (South Central Railway)
- Insertion of Box at Bridge No. 525 (South Central Railway)
- Launching of 6 Foot Over Bridges (FOBs) under Bhusawal division (Central Railway)
- Dismantling of old abandoned twin FOBs at Ludhiana railway station (Northern Railway)
- Launching of Service girder for Canal work (East Central Railway)
- Dismantling of Talla ROB (Eastern Railway)