Commissioner of Railway Safety conducts safety inspection of Padil-Kulashekar line

Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), Southern Circle, Bengaluru Abhai Kumar Rai conducted a preliminary inspection of the newly laid 2.26 -km railway line between Padil-Kulashekara on Saturday.

The inspection is a precursor to the signal disconnection (pre-non-interlocked working) and tracks connection work (non-interlocked working) to connect the new line with the existing railway lines as part of the doubling work in the section.

Inspection using the motor trolley commenced from the Padil station yard. On the course, CRS will inspect the curve, minor bridge, point, height cutting and tunnel in the section. The inspection will conclude at Jokkatte station.

During the inspection, CRS was accompanied by Rajendra Prasad Jingar, Chief Administrative Officer, Construction, Ernakulam, Niranjan Naik, Chief Engineer, Construction, Ernakulam, Trilok Kothari, Divisional Railway Manager, Palakkad Division and other higher officials of South Railway.

About the new infrastructure

Padil - Kulasekhara doubling work for a length of 2.26-Km (including a new tunnel of 780 m on the Up line) is the 4th and final stage of 19- km patch doubling work between Mangaluru Junction and Panambur.

The new Tunnel (No 4B ) is the highlight of the project. This is the fourth railway tunnel in Palakkad Division jurisdiction. (Other than the existing tunnel in Kulashekara, The other two tunnels are on the up and down line between Kasaragod - Kottikulam)

The tunnel has 780-metres in length and 6.18 -metres in breadth. The height of the tunnel is 6.8-metres. The conventional drill and blast method was used for tunnelling. The tunnel work alone cost approximately Rs 70 crore.

Southern Railway is planning three days Pre non interlocked (pre-NI)-working and continuous 11 hours. NI working to connect the newly laid line with the existing lines. The work is likely to be taken up in the third week of March.

With the doubling in Padil -Kulasekhara section, a bottleneck in train operations that existed with the short single line section (2.26 km) will get eliminated.

At present, the line capacity of the section is only 24 trains in each direction and line capacity utilization of the section is 115%. At present coach, trains are frequently held up at Mangaluru Junction and Jokkatte for want of passage, especially when trains are running late.

Freight trains are to be moved in between the coaching trains whenever a path is available. Hence freight trains are now frequently detained at Panambur and Jokkatte stations. With the introduction of doubling, detention to these freight trains are minimised.