200 Railway Maintenance Projects completed during Covid-19 lockdown period
Jun 27, 2020
New Delhi [India], June 27 : The backend warriors of Indian Railways have fully availed the opportunity provided by the suspension of passenger services due to pandemic of COVID 19 as it successfully executed more than 200 long-pending maintenance works including yard remodelling, repair and re-girdering of old bridges, doubling and electrification of rail lines and renewal of scissor crossovers.
Pending for several years, these unfinished projects 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.
During this period Indian Railways focused on several long-pending overdue maintenance works which required traffic block of long durations. These works were pending for several years and were confronting Railways with severe bottlenecks.
They were planned during the 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.
These works were taken up for the removal of bottlenecks and enhance safety include 82 rebuilding/rehabilitation of the bridge, 48 limited height subway/road under a bridge in lieu of level crossing gate, 16 construction/strengthening of the foot over bridge, 14 dismantling of old foot over bridge, 7 launchings of the road over the bridge, 5 yard remodelling, 1 commissioning of doubling & electrification and 26 other projects.
Some of these key projects include: Yard Modification work in Jolarpetti (Chennai Division, Southern Railway) was completed on 21st May 2020. It resulted in easing out of the curve and enhancing the speed up to 60Kmph on Bengaluru end and facilitated Simultaneous reception and dispatch.
Likewise dismantling of old abandoned unsafe Foot Over Bridge at Ludhiana (Ferozepur Division, Northern Railway) was completed on 5th May 2020. Dismantling of this 135 meter long old abandoned FOB structure over 19 tracks and 7 passenger platforms was overdue since 2014 after new FOB was commissioned.
Work of re-girdering of the bridge on Tunga River (Mysuru Division, South Western Railway) was completed on 3rd May 2020. Dismantling of the unsafe deck of Kopar Road ROB near Dombivali (Mumbai Division, Central Railway) was completed on 30rd April 2020 and it resulting in enhanced safety. This deck was declared unsafe for road users in 2019 and covered 6 railway tracks below.
