Backend warriors of Indian Railways have successfully executed long pending Maintenance works like Yard remodelling, Renewal of Scissors Crossover, Repairs of Bridges during this lockdown. Pending for several years, they often confronted Indian Railways as bottlenecks.

Apart from ensuring supply chains all essential commodities running through parcel trains and freight trains, Indian Railways executed these long pending maintenance works during this lockdown period when passenger services were suspended due to COVID -19.

Indian Railways focused on several long pending overdue maintenance works requiring Traffic block of long durations. These works were pending for several years and were confronting Railways with severe bottlenecks. Indian Railways planned these works during lockdown period considering it ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipe out these maintenance arrears and take up the execution of work without affecting the train service.

Around 500 modern heavy duty Track Maintenance Machines along with track, signal & Overhead Equipment (OHE) maintainers have worked regularly for 10749 machine days to complete overdue track maintenance of 12270 km plain track & 5263 nos. of Turn outs.

Health of the track has been monitored through periodic runs of Oscillation Monitoring System (OMS) cumulating 1,92,488 kms. of track at 5362 peak locations indicated by OMS test has been attended to ensure proper quality. Ultrasonic flaw detection (USFD) of 30182 kms of track and 1,34,443 rail welds has been carried out with USFD machine. Critical summer precaution activities like de-stressing of long welded rail (LWR)which involved huge men power has been taken up with a new procedure for carrying out the work with ensuring social distancing norms. 2,246 kms of de-stressing of LWR has been done.

SOME OF THE IMPORTANT TRACK WORKS:

Renewal of wooden layout Scissors crossover with standard Pre-stress Concrete (PSC) layout in KAZIPET yard (South Central Railway).
A major block of 72 hrs was taken in Kazipet yard for pending yard remodelling to replace old wooden scissors crossover laid in1970 with standard PSC layout. It will improve the safety and speed of train movement through the yard.

Renewal of Scissors Crossover at Vijayawada Yard with PSC Layout (South Central Railway).

Two blocks of 24 hours were taken on 09.04.20 and 10.04.20 during the lockdown period for renewal of old wooden layout Scissors crossover with standard PSC layout crossover providing a vital link and flexibility in the operations of the yard. This will improve movement of train service towards Secundrabad and Vishakhapatnam.

Repair of Cement Concrete (CC) apron on Line no 1 and 2 at Baroda station (Western Railway).

The repair of CC aprons of Line no. 1 was undertaken in a traffic block of 4 days (8/4/2020- 11/4/2020) and of Line no 2 in a traffic block of 12 days (13/4/2020- 24/4/2020) using Ultra high strength, free flowing non shrink cement grout. The grout has arrested the pumping action of track on line no. 1 & 2 at the affected locations.

Remodeling work in Bangalore City yard (South Western Railway):

Work of Bangalore City Yard remodeling for simultaneous receipt and dispatch of trains at Mysore end was completed successfully. This work was pending for more than last 10 years and would have involved cancellation/short termination of 60 Mail/Express Trains under normal circumstances.

IMPORTANT BRIDGE WORKS:-

Re-girdering of Bridge No. 86 on Tunga River near Shivamogga Town (South Western Railway).

This is an important bridge having15 spans of 18.30m steel plate girders at Km. 61/100-500 on Birur Jn - Telguppa section of Mysore division. This work in normal times would have required traffic block of about 45 hours at 3:00 hours each day.

The existing steel girders are non-standard and being replaced with 25T loading standard steel girders. The height of the bridge is about 20m from river bed. The launching of all girders will be completed by 02.05.2020.

Dismantling of Road Over Bridge (ROB) near Chennai Station (Southern Railway) :

Dismantling of unsafe ROB crossing 8 tracks on the approach of Chennai Central Station has been started on 26.03.20 and will be completed by 03.05.20. If done in normal time, it would have required 48 hours traffic block on line 1 to 6 and 72 hours traffic block on line 7 & 8 (suburban lines) with at least double the resources and cost apart from massive cancellation/rescheduling of trains with resultant loss of passenger revenue.

Insertion of twin box segments of size 4.65x5.15m for subway in lieu of manned level crossing no. 493 (East Coast Railway):

A subway work was done between Visakhapatnam-Gopalapatnam section on 21.04.2020 in a traffic block of 9 hrs. This will facilitate closure of level crossing thereby improving safety of public. This work was pending from long time for want of traffic block.

Construction of bridge in Rajahmundry-Vishakhapatnam section to cater opening of 4 x 5.5 m (South Central Railway).

The work involves provision of new bridge in HUDUD affected area where the track was washed out 2 times in 2013 & 2014. Total 21 hours traffic block was availed at 7:00 hrs each on 25.04.2020, 27.04.2020 and 28.04.2020. This bridge was required for passage of flood water to avoid breaches.

 Insertion of Box at Bridge No. 525 (South Central Railway):

16 Boxes of size (4.6x4 m) were inserted at Bridge no. 525 on UP line at km 266/7-5 between Tanguturu–Singarayakonda on 29.04.2020 in critical situation successfully within traffic block of 8 hrs.

Launching of 6 Foot Over Bridges (FOBs) under Bhusawal division (Central Railway)

Work of launching of 5 FOBs during the lockdown has been completed one each at Bhusawal, Bodwad, Akola, New Amravati and Chandur Bazar Railway stations. 6th and the last one at Nandura station has also been targeted on 2.5.2020.

Dismantling of old abandoned twin FOBs at Ludhiana railway station (Northern Railway).

100-year-old twin FOBs were closed to passenger use since 2014. However, dismantling of old FOB in OHE territory blocking all lines for more than 10-12 hours for several days was not feasible on New Delhi- Amritsar route. During lockdown, dismantling of these FOBs has been planned to complete in traffic blocks of 8-10 hrs. for 8 days. 2 traffic blocks have already been availed for successful dismantling of FOBs.

Launching of Service girder for Canal work (East Central Railway):

Long pending work of launching of service girder in connection with Canal work of State Govt., requiring 10+ hours block was completed in Kakarghatti-Tarsarai busy single line section of Samastipur division.

Dismantling of Talla ROB (Eastern Railway):

The ROB was unsafe for passenger, therefore, same was closed for re-construction. 8 spans of the ROB over Kolkata terminal station crossing 11 tracks and stabling lines were dismantled. In normal situation it would have a huge impact on passenger (especially suburban services) and freight services due to traffic blocks.