As the passenger trains stopped running with the announcement of lockdown in the country the rail traffic on the vast network of Indian Railways was minimized. During the lockdown period of mid-March-May, only the goods, parcel, shramik and special trains were moving on the tracks.
As the rail traffic was low, Northern Railway (NR) used the unprecedented window period to carryout repair and maintenance of the rails and welds, overhauling of level crossings and de-stressing of tracks for enhancing safety.
- In total 36,440 Km railway track over the zone was inspected.
- 7,160 Track-km rails, 32,704 Welds, 3,395 Switch Expansion Joints and 3,616 Turnouts have been tested using ultrasonic devices for faults and damage.
- 568 level crossings were overhauled or repaired with an average of 7 level crossings per day, which is more than the normal routine maintenance practices.
Shri Rajiv Chaudhry, General Manager, Northern & North Central Railways shared that during the lockdown period (25.03.2020-09.06.2020) detection of damaged parts and their replacement was done using state of the art flaw detection machines available with Northern Railway.
Equipment used during the works include:
- Oscillation Monitoring System (OMS): for detection of internal defects in the tracks.
- Ultrasonic flaw detection (USFD) technique: used to detect miniscule fractures and damages (not visible to the naked eye) in the Rails & Welds.
- Tamping Machines: used to pack (or tamp) the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks more durable.
- UNIMAT Tamping Machines: for packing ballast at points and crossings.
The repair works were easily executed even with limited staff and labour during the lockdown period. All covid preventive norms which include use of mask and social distancing were strictly followed.
Source: NR-Press Release
