India Railways completes several pending projects during lockdown period

Taking nationwide lockdown to fight against COVID-19 as an opportunity, Indian Railways has completed over 200 long pending projects in its network.

Some of the works including yard remodeling, repair and re-girdering of old bridges, doubling and electrification of rail lines and renewal of scissor crossovers, which were pending for several years, have been completed, the railways said in a statement.

While ensuring supply chains of all essential commodities running through parcel trains and freight trains, the railways also executed these long pending maintenance works during this lockdown period when passenger services were suspended.

The railways suspended passengers train services on March 23 while freight train operated as usual to ferry essential commodities.

"During lockdown period, railways focused on several long pending projects. They were planned during lockdown period considering it ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipe out these maintenance arrears and take up the execution of work without affecting the train service," said the railways.

These works taken up for removal of bottlenecks and enhance safety include 82 rebuilding/rehabilitation of bridge, 48 limited height subway/road under bridge in lieu of level crossing gate, 16 construction/strengthening of foot over bridge, 14 dismantling of old foot over bridge, 7 launching of road over bridge, 5 yard remodelling, 1 commissioning of doubling and electrification and 26 other projects.

Following works completed :

Yard Modification work in Jolarpetti (Chennai Division, Southern Railway) was completed on May 21, 2020. It resulted in easing out of curve and enhancing the speed up to 60 Kmph on Bengaluru and facilitated Simultaneous reception and dispatch.

Work of re-girdering of bridge on Tunga River (Mysuru Division, South Western Railway) was completed on May 3, 2020. Dismantling of unsafe deck of Kopar Road ROB near Dombivali (Mumbai Division, Central Railway) was completed on April 3, 2020, resulting in enhanced safety. This deck was declared unsafe for road users in 2019 and covered 6 railway tracks below.

The dismantling work of Railway Over Bridge crossing 8 railway tracks in the approach of Chennai Central Station was completed on May 9, 2020.

Completion of several works, which were earlier considered as bottleneck, will help smooth movement of trains in several sectors.