After 5 Days of Pre-non interlocking and 4 Days of interlocking, work of yard remodeling of Hosapete Junction, part of doubling of Railway track between Hosapete and Tinaighat has been completed on 23.06.2020. The yard has now been modified to suit Railway Electrification between Hosapete–Tinaighat-Vasco section.
Turning adversity of lockdown into an opportunity, remodeling of the Yard was completed by South Western Railway (SWR). In the normal course of normal train running, cancellation/regulation of both passenger and express trains would have to be resorted for this yard remodeling. It would have necessitated cancellation/short termination and rescheduling of many passenger train services, causing inconvenience to passengers.
- Simultaneous reception and dispatch of trains from both directions would be possible now after yard remodeling.
- This gives flexibility in train operations and hence trains need not wait when trains are being dispatched to the other end.
- Also with remodeling of the yard, Hosapete Junction is now fit to deal with both diesel and electric traction (trains).
- This remodeling of Hosapete involved Civil Engineering, Signalling & Telecommunication and Electrical works.
- The same were completed at a cost of Rs. 60 Crore.
- About 30 (total of officers and staff) worked around the clock for 9 days for completing the work duly taking precautionary measures in wake of COVID.
- Wearing of masks, frequent sanitization of hands and tools and social distancing were followed strictly.
Shri A.K. Singh, General Manager, SWR said that this was a long pending work which has been completed with teamwork and this will be a milestone in running electric trains from Guntakal to Hosapete now and further to Hubballi.
- The remodeling involved removal of yard congestion and provision of double line connectivity towards Gadag end to facilitate Up and Down movements simultaneously.
- Connectivity to Road 2, 3 and 4 of Ballari UP line and Road 5, 6 and 7 of Ballari Down line has now been provided.
- To increase yard flexibility and simultaneous reception /dispatch of trains and shunting operations, 2 additional goods reception and dispatch lines, 2 additional shunting necks, 2 additional sidings were added.
- These additional lines and sidings will go a long way in increasing the importance of Hosapete yard further.
- New Station master building has been constructed under this work.
- Electronic Interlocking (EI) system of distributed architecture and dual VDU (Visual Display Unit) operation to control the entire yard operation were provided.
- Eliminating the existing electro-mechanical working from 4 Cabins (East, West, Centre and Bye pass), all operations are now centralized from the Station Master’s panel room.
- EI System with a hot standby facility was commissioned and the same controls the whole station with one Central Interlocking Unit and 24 Object Controllers distributed in 3 locations.
- All the sub systems of EI are connected through OFC (Optical Fibre Cable) in redundant paths, to ensure failure free working.
- 14 Reception and Dispatch (R&D) Lines, Bye pass line connecting Gadag and Yeswanthnagar lines, Rail Grinding machine (RGM) siding, Tower wagon siding, sleeper siding, washing cum pit lines, ROH shed lines, short shunting necks, long shunting neck etc.
- All tracks have been completely track circuited improving safety in operation of trains.
- Remodeled Hosapete Jn. is the station with the highest number of routes so far in SWR.
- It has 415 routes, followed by Yesvantpur with 262 routes, Bengaluru with 215 routes and Hubballi 229 routes.
- This commissioning further enables up and down train movements simultaneously on Gadag and Ballari sides of Hosapete Yard.
- This reduces the detention of trains while ensuring 100% safety.
- 96 point machines, 127 track circuits, 48 main signals, 34 calling on signals, 32 shunt signals, 31 post type shunt signals have been provided.
- 10 LC gates are interlocked with 20 road warning signals.
- To work the operations in failure of power condition, six 20 KVA DG sets (2 each at 3 Object Controller huts) have been provided.
- Data loggers at each OC hut and 24 OCs have been installed.
- 13 locally operated Non interlocked points/key lock points have now been replaced by motor operation
- Instead of manual shunting being done till now, shunt signals have been provided which will speed up the shunting operations ensuring safety.
Source: SWR-Press Release
