For the first time in the South Central Railway (SCR) zone, a general coach’s broken air spring was replaced in 40 minutes while the coach remained attached to the train at the Vijayawada Railway Station on Tuesday. The general coach which faced the issue belonged to the Allapuzha-Dhanbad Express, The Hindu reported citing a release.
The coach, which sustained a deflated air spring, was heading towards Dhanbad in Jharkhand.
The Vijayawada Division officials were alerted by the Palakkad Division staff who noticed the defect restricting the train’s top speed to 60 kilometres per hour as a precautionary measure.
After receiving the information from the Palakkad Divison staff, the Vijayawada Division started making repairs as soon as the train hit the brakes at the station at 12:30 pm on July 11. To avoid delaying the train further, the repair team carried out the task without detaching the coach from the train and taking it to a pit line. Detaching a coach and moving it to a pit line is a general practice which is followed while making repairs.
The passengers of the affected coach were asked to deboard.The mechanical team tasked with the repair work comprised 20 members. The team was able to replace the air spring and fix the issue, allowing the train to move further on its journey with a top speed of 130 kilometres per hour.
The repair work was monitored by Vijayawada Division’s Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer, M Ravi Kiran. He said this was the first-ever en-route in-situ replacement of a broken air spring on a station platform in the zone.
The engineering officials and the mechanical team behind the repair were congratulated by the Division Railway Manager Shivendra Mohan for completing the task in such a manner.