Indian Railways has started the preparatory works for the upcoming monsoon season. The move aims to avoid the water-logging on railway tracks due to heavy rains and to ensure the smooth operation of trains.
In this context, the Central Railway (CR) zone has taken several measures to cope up with the situation. The zonal railways is divided into five divisions – Mumbai Division, Bhusawal Division, Nagpur Division, Solapur Division, and Pune Division.
The zonal railway operates over 1700 suburban services a day and the passengers face a harrowing time, if the trains come to a halt.
Some of these measures adopted by Central Railway (CR) are:-
- Setting up more water pumps: The Central Railway zone will set up 166 water pumps at more than 16 vulnerable locations to provide water pumps. Of these, 120 will be High Power pumps, 15 to be normal pumps, and 31 pumps will be provided by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. The water pumps will be provided on – (a) Main Line – Masjid, Mazgaon yard, Byculla, Chinchpokli, Currey Road, Parel, Dadar, Matunga, Sion, Kurla, Vikhroli, Kanjurmarg, Bhandup, Mulund and (b) Harbour Line – Sewri, Vadala, Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar, Chunabhatti, Tilak Nagar etc.
- Micro tunnelling: The railways will carry on micro tunnelling work at eight locations – Masjid, Sandhurst Road, Dadar-Parel area, Matunga-Sion area, Kurla Car Shed, Tilak Nagar nallah, Diva and Kalva.
- Desilting of drains: The zonal railway has targeted de-silting and cleaning of 118.48 kms of drains on its suburban section. Of these, the work has been completed for 102.39 kms and the work is currently underway in another 16 kms of drains.
- Cleaning of culverts: The CR has cleaned 88 culverts on its suburban sections. The effort is in progress to clean 17 more culverts.
- Trimming of trees: The Central Railway (CR) has cut and trimmed 43 trees so far and the work is in progress of 23 more trees.
- Removal of muck: The zonal railway has decided to remove 62,000 cubic meters of muck on the Main lines section.
