Waltair Railway Division to celebrate 125th anniversary on Nov 24

Visakhapatnam: Waltair Railway Division will celebrate its 125th anniversary celebrations on November 24. The division is one of the blue-chip divisions and one of the five highest revenue earning divisions of Indian Railways spreads in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chattisgarh State.

The railway operations commenced at erstwhile Waltair from 1893 origin to the state-owned East Coast Railways covering 1,280 km covering Cuttack, Khurda Road, Puri, Palasa, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Vijayawada.

The track opened for traffic between 1,893 and 1,896, later Bengal Nagpur Railway took over the part of the Northern part and subsequently emerged into Eastern Railway. Later, it was regrouped of Indian Railways titled as South Eastern Railway.

With mix of goods and passenger traffic sections, its major passenger corridor comprises 213 kilometres Duvvada-Palasa section on Howrah-Chennai trunk route and 139 kilometres Vizianagaram-Rayagada Section.

The 446-km Kottavalsa-Kirandul single line connecting Bailadilla iron ore mines with major ports is most precious goods corridor of Waltair Division. Reckoned for its breath-taking views-highly rugged mountainous terrain with steep gradients and curves - 56 tunnels, 87 major and 1,236 minor bridges, the KK Line is indeed an engineering marvel in Indian Railways.

Waltair Division has been a predominantly freight oriented Division beginning with carrying a few tonnes of originating traffic in the beginning, now it increased multi folds to 56 million tonnes per annum. The Division caters to major industries including NALCO, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, NTPC, UTKAL, JK Paper and several major industries.

The division is handling nearly 200 coaching trains per day carrying 36 million passengers annually safely. Achieving high earnings and performance index ratio of 35.21 per cent, Waltair Division has proven its mettle.

For safety, Waltair Division being un-manned level crossing-free Division with all its 273 LC gates converted into either manned or provided with Subways. Waltair Division achieved cent per cent energy efficiency by replacing all the conventional lights with LED lighting at 112 railway stations and four service buildings were powered with rooftop solar PV systems generating one mega-watt power and saving 22.5 lakh per annum.

The first glass dome tourist coach by Indian railways between Visakhapatnam-Araku, passing through world famous Borra caves, which always runs pack these efforts earned dividend with it being conferred best tourist-friendly railway station in 2017 by Andhra Pradesh Government.