Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Coaching complex racing towards completion

VISAKHAPATNAM: East Coast Railway’s (ECoR) biggest coach maintenance complex would be ready for inauguration in June as the Rs.10.45-crore third phase of construction in the 15-acre SAIL siding (Marripalem) is nearing completion. This project is one of the election promises of the local politicians.

Sources said nearly 70 per cent of the work to construct fourth and fifth pits in the third phase is over and the railway is hopeful of completing the project as per schedule. While the concreting of the fourth pit is over, earth work for the fifth pit is nearing completion.

The third phase was taken up early this year. When completed, this coaching complex could cater to the railway’s requirement for another 20 years as rakes of up to 30 trains could be cleaned and maintained per day here. As many as 400 persons of railway’s mechanical department would be working in three shifts in this complex.

Though work on the coaching complex project, mainly to take care of washing, cleaning, attending to small repairs of rakes of trains that originate from Visakhapatnam, began as early as 2001 during the period of then Minister of State for Railways Bandaru Dattatareya, due to various problems it moved at a snail’s pace. The Rs. 6.18-crore first phase consisted of two pits and the second phase (Rs.7.2 crore) one pit. In the third phase, two pits (taking the total to five) would come up besides an exclusive shed for undertaking major mechanical and electrical repairs in the rakes. The shed will have huge cranes with the capacity of 120 tonnes to lift the rakes. Presently such defective rakes are being transported to Chennai or Kharagpur for repairs. Each of the concrete pit will be 620 metres long (to accommodate 26 rakes) and 2.5 metres wide with the provision 3.6 metre broad washing area. The pits have been put up with the depth of 2 metres so that the maintenance staff could easily walk beneath the rakes to check for any defects in the mechanical and electrical system in the undercarriage. Another feature of phase-III is the construction of another overhead water tank (2.25 lakh litres) – for storing recycled water, and a water recycling plant (capacity 4 lakh litres per day). This coaching complex would be a boon to Vizag as hitherto the coaches were washed on the sides of the existing station (now platform no.6) and moreover, long trains could not be washed at one go as the pit was not long enough. The rakes were divided into two or three parts and then washed which was time consuming and due to this there were instances of delayed departure of trains like Godavari, Janmabhoomi, Ratnachal, Link and Tirumala express.

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