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 routine 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.
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 routine 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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