Thrissur Railway Passengers' Association, TRPA is the confluence of all the stake holders who are interested in the development of Railway facilities in and around Thrissur. Naturally, all the people who avail Railway facilities from Thrissur and other neighbouring stations are automatically the members of this association. Due to the historic reasons, commuters from Thrissur towards Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Palakkad sides form the active group. TRPA always stands for meeting the public demands and this process is well supported by Railway Men, Political Leaders and the Media in Thrissur. The tireless efforts by TRPA in achieving the long standing basic requirements of Thrissur are well recognised and appreciated by one and all. TRPA is committed to continue its service to the society at large, cutting across all divisions. "Our prime focus is on the sustainable improvement of rail service in the country to world class levels with special emphasis on Thrissur"

Monday, 3 February 2014

Shunting accident stresses need for advanced train repair unit in state

Coaches Now Taken To Chennai For Major Repair

Kochi: The accident that led to the crushing of a rail coach during shunting at Kochuveli on Sunday points to acute shortage of maintenance facilities and deficit of new coaches, say experts. 
    Railway officials, however, asserted that they are sending coaches for regular maintenance and there are enough coaches to run existing trains. According to them, there are 81 mail and express trains and 67 passenger trains running in the Thiruvananthapuram division which together require 1,700 coaches. For any major overhaul, the coaches are sent to the railway workshop at Peramboor near Chennai. 
    “Being located at the southern tip of the country, there are many trains which stop at Thiruvananthapuram, Kanyakumari or Nagercoil. Their coaches are taken for major maintenance to Peramboor, which is 600km away. It is critical to have a proper maintenance station in the southern tip of the country,” said Thrissur railway passengers’ association general secretary P 
Krishnakumar. 
    This can be done by augmenting the infrastructure at the Nemom maintenance station or starting a new facility, he said. 
    He recalled state minister Aryadan Muhammed stating that over 70% of the coaches running in the state are over 25 years old. However, railway divisional manager Sunil Bajpai denied this. “The life span of a coach is 25 years and we have no coaches above that age in use in the division,” he said. 
    “The coaches are sent to Chennai only for periodic overhauls. Intermediate overhauls, which cover most of the rou
tine repairs, could be done at Nemom,” he said. 
    Krishnakumar said it was also critical to speed up the construction of the proposed coach factory at Kanjikkode as the Railways often cite the paucity of coaches as reason for not replacing old coaches and starting new trains. 
    However, the divisional manager claimed that it was the constraints of rail line development rather than shortage of coaches that was slowing down introduction of new trains. 
    He said the report of the enquiry into the shunting accident was expected in five days.
(T.Ramavarman, Times of India dt 4-2-2014)

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