Northeast Frontier Railway uses lockdown to speed up asset maintenance

Prabin Kalita | TNN | Apr 25, 2020, 16:59 IST

Freight carrying trains as well as parcel trains are running regularly with essentials items but as passengers trains are not running, it has provided ample time gaps to take up track and other maintenance work.

Freight carrying trains as well as parcel trains are running regularly with essentials items but as passengers...Read More

GUWAHATI: As passengers trains remain off tracks, Northeast Frontier Railway’s different divisions are busy converting the lockdown period into an opportunity to speed up maintenance work.
“The progress achieved by track machines during this one-month lockdown is approximately 20 to 25% higher than the progress achieved during the normal course, despite the works being carried out with the minimum number of staff, labours maintaining all norms of social distancing, sanitization of workplaces etc,” NF Railway chief PRO Subhanan Chanda said.
He said that freight carrying trains as well as parcel trains are running regularly with essentials items but as passengers trains are not running, it has provided ample time gaps to take up track and other maintenance work.
“Undertaking maintenance work is difficult due to very heavy movement of trains in normal time and it requires traffic blocks or mega blocks by stopping movements of all trains to do such work. These blocks are normally taken on days with lesser train movements to lessen the adverse effects on the passenger for ensuring safe and timely train running,” he said.
He said that since the train lockdown started from March 25, the engineering department of NFR took the opportunity to unload 11,000 cubic metre of ballast in different locations of track for ensuring adequate availability of ballast for safer train movement. Moreover, 14.0 km of new rails were unloaded in different locations for the replacement of old rail panels.
“Ultra Sonic Flaw Detection (USFD) testing, which is done to detect invisible rail fractures were carried out in 619 km section during this period, to enhance the safety of train movement by many folds,” he said.
He said that with the lockdown, the entire fleet of track machines was put into full utilization. Machines were used for track tamping in 635 km of track, dynamic track stabiliser machines were used in 165 kms of track while ballast was dressed in 60 kms section, machine packing of 372 number turnouts was done.
Apart from all these, about 35000 masks were distributed to trackmen performing duties on tracks. 20000 soaps and about 1200 lts of hand sanitizers were also provided to trackmen during this period to ensure safety.
In addition regular oiling and greasing of track and inspection including day and night patrolling are being conducted on daily basis, the CPRO said.