Guwahati, April 25 (PTI): The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) is using the lockdown period to carry out maintenance work even as the freight and parcel carrying trains are running regularly with essentials items 24X7, an official said.
With the passenger trains having stopped plying throughout the country for more than a month, different divisions of NFR are busy converting the lockdown period into an opportunity to speed up maintenance work, NFR chief public relations officer (CPRO) Subhanan Chanda, said on Saturday.
Although freight and parcel carrying trains are running regularly with essentials items 24x7, Chanda said there are ample time gaps to take up track and other maintenance work.
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, Chanda said.
These blocks are normally taken on days with lesser train movements to lessen the adverse effects on the passenger for ensuring safe and timely train running, the CPRO said.
As most parts of the entire railway systems are already overburdened with more than 100 per cent utilisation, getting such block is difficult although essential, he added.
Since the lockdown started from March 25, the engineering department of NFR took the opportunity to unload ballast in different locations of track to ensure adequate availability of ballast for safer train movement.
A total of 14 km of new rails were unloaded in different locations for replacement of old rail panels, Chanda said. USFD testing which is done to detect invisible rail fractures were carried out in 619 km section during this period to enhance the safety of train movement by many folds.
Since the lockdown started, the entire fleet of track machines was put into full utilisation with machines used for track tamping in 635 km of track.
Dynamic Track Stabiliser machines were used in 165 km of track, while ballast was dressed in 60 km section, machine packing of 372 turnouts was done.
In addition, regular oiling and greasing of track and inspection including day and night patrolling are being conducted on a daily basis.
The CPRO further said several other pending works were also completed by taking advantage of the lockdown.
The progress achieved by track machines during this one-month lockdown is approximately 20 to 25 per cent higher than the progress achieved during the normal course despite the works being carried out with the minimum number of staff and labourers maintaining all norms of social distancing and sanitisation of workplaces, Chanda said.
Apart from all these, about 35,000 masks were distributed to trackmen performing duties on tracks, 20,000 pieces of soaps and about 1,200 litres of hand sanitizers were also provided to trackmen during this period to ensure their safety.