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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, November 23: Conceived with the idea of extensively repairing sections of the Central Railway CR tracks, the megablock is an idea now beset by a time crunch. In addition, frequent rail accidents, 25 of them in the last one year, have already raised serious questions on the efficacy of megablocks.
Megablocks are maintenance jobs in which a particular section of the track is taken up and all departments involved in the running of trains 8211; civil engineering, signal and telecommunications, overhead equipment among others 8211; participate.
CR officials have been left complaining at the insufficient time given for track maintainence, just six hours each Sunday. A majority of these mishaps including derailments are directly connected to track maintainence.
The facts 8211; CR runs 1,056 trains a day carrying 29 lakh passengers, nearly twice the stipulated capacity. Every train trundles 504 km a day. With a train every 1.6 minutes, tracks are the hardest hit by the excessive load.
Track maintainence in the last decade has suffered with the growing demand for more train services. CR has conducted 61 blocks till date, a concept started during the tenure of former railway minister Suresh Kalmadi two years ago.
During a megablock, trains do not run as smoothly as they should on any other day. The blocks impose certain restrictions on the running of trains thus causing delays. Caution orders8217; issued to motormen too drastically restrict train speeds. 8220;The suburban system needs nothing but proper maintenance 8212; megablocks are the only option,8221; a senior Central Railway official said.
Express Newsline visited one such megablock between Thane and Kalyan on Sunday, to assess its utility. Supervised by senior railway officials at sites spread between the two stations, nearly 850 persons including contractors8217; staff slogged to replace old rails, sleepers and carry out routine checks.
Jobs routinely undertaken during megablocks include track and sleeper replacement, providing stone ballast cushions for smoother rides and realigning tracks among others.
To ensure utmost accuracy, the railways have acquired a highly-sophisticated machine which not just replaces old rails and sleepers with new ones but also determines the amount of stone ballast cushioning which is to be provided for jump-free running of trains.
Called the Tamper Track Renewal Train TRT, this Rs 5 crore US-made multi-function machine is a workforce in itself. 8220;The TRT saves the railways of several manhours and at the same time is economical,8221; said an official supervising a site near the Nutan hill near Kalva.
To add to the workforce, several other machines like the quot;tower wagonquot; which maintains the overhead equipment among others also are pressed into the maintenance work which is done phasewise.
