Maintanence work in progress. (NFR Photo)
Average speed of goods carrying trains increased by 58%
Maligaon, June 7 (MExN): Different divisions of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) have converted the lockdown period into an opportunity to speed up maintenance work ever since passenger trains stopped plying throughout the country., a press release from Subhanan Chanda, CPRO , NFR said on June 7.
According to the release, it was found that emphasis given on maintenance of assets led to substantial increase in the average speed of freight carrying trains within NFR during the month of May, 2020 in comparison to May, 2019.
In NFR area, the average speed increased by 58% over the same period of last year. Moreover, this increase in average speed is found to much better than some of the major zones of Indian Railways, the release added.
Although freight carrying trains as well as parcel trains are running regularly with essentials items 24 x 7; it provided ample time gaps to take up track and other maintenance work, the release said.
Undertaking such work is difficult due to very heavy movement of trains in normal time, and it requires traffic blocks or mega blocks by stopping movements of all trains to do such work.
Since the lockdown started from March 25, the Engineering department of NFR took the opportunity to undertake various works like unloading of ballast in different locations of track for ensuring adequate availability of ballast for safer train movement, replacement of old rail panels by new rails, USFD testing which is done to detect invisible rail fractures, full utilization of track machines for track tamping and various other works etc. Good progress could be achieved despite the works being carried out with the minimum number of staff, maintaining all norms of social distancing, sanitization of workplaces etc, the release added.
