Local trains get daily maintenance to get them track ready: Lockdown Effect

Although passenger services are not operating in Mumbai’s suburban railway routes in lockdown, however daily vigilance and repair staff is going on

Mumbai: As operations of passenger train services throughout the country has been halted due to the nationwide lockdown imposed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Railway is converting the unprecedented lockdown into an opportunity and carrying out maintenance work in this period. The Indian Railways is ensuring that after the lockdown passenger trains operation remains smoothly.

The Railway Board had in the recent past has issued a circular and asked the railways to run (move) local trains for at least 400-500 meters in a stipulated period to avoid malfunctioning of the parts of trains.

Following this, order from the Railway Board the Mumbai Suburban divisions of Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) are carrying out maintenance work on the suburban network of Mumbai. In Mumbai division the Railways operates nearly 3000 train services on daily basis and approximately 80 lakh commuters use these suburban local train services.

Shivaji Sutar Chief Public Relation Officer of CR said,” We are maintaining the weekly movement of the stationed rakes to about 600-800 meters so as the traction bearings remain functional. The maintenance on the rakes is on whether it is checking of gear boxes or maintaining battery life.”

“When the trains are parked for a long, issue of brake jams requires more attention. It is required regular checking thus the time of lockdown it is also done,” added Sutar

With the maintenance the Mumbai division also bears the liability to protect the rakes. Thus Railway Protection Force (RPF) an internal wing of Indian Railways, personnel is ensuring the safety of rakes in car-sheds.

“It is necessary to check on the health of batteries, we regularly do it. However during this lockdown it is more than necessary to do thus along with other maintenance, the regular charging of batteries are ensured by the Maintenance department of the WR, “said Ravinder Bhakar Chief Public Relation Officer of WR.

The local trains are stationed at various car-sheds in Mumbai division, the maintenance of rakes, which run on various corridor of CR, is being carried out at Kurla, Kalwa and Sanpada. The WR has three EMU car sheds at Mumbai Central, Kandivali & Virar.