Angels of cleanliness who make rail travel cheery

Secunderabad: Even as the whole nation is engrossed in a sustained Swachh Bharat Mission -Clean India campaign, seldom do rail commuters pause for a moment on who cleans the bogies and prepares them for a hassle-free travel. Rain or shine, the Railway Coaching Depot at Chilkalguda buzzes with activity with 800 personnel involved in cleaning and fixing coaches for the next trip.

Activity begins after the coaches are brought to the pitlanes over a vast area and the depot administration deploys two-member staff for tidying up three coaches. The work involves checking of fans, lights and cleaning of exteriors, floor, doors and windows, wash basin, berths and washrooms. The cleaning department is equipped with scrubber, cleaner and vacuum cleaner to wipe the dirt stuck to the coach by using Taski, a chemical solution.

Srinivas Reddy, a senior coaching depot officer reveals that the personnel are handed a bio-toilet - a box with six chambers containing inoculum, a biochemical with anaerobic bacteria which eats away the waste and leaves out small amounts of water. However, the workforce for cleaning is outsourced due to shortage of staff.

To ensure that passengers are not put to discomfort, glue pads with a cage on the floor are placed at the extreme corners to trap rats that find way into the A/C coaches. This rodent control measure is undertaken only in AC coaches, he adds.

On the maintenance side, the workforce consistently works on flaws in the under-gear mechanism and cleaning up the upper trolley. Each coach is assigned to eight members to examine the bogie – to check for loose connections, bolts, nuts, cracks, braking system, brake pipeline, wheels, feed pipeline, air cylinder etc, says Srinivas Reddy.

Damage of brake pads and wheel defects are common problems. Listing the complaints received from passengers about the hammering sound from the wheels, T Prabhu, Senior Section Engineer, says that a tire defect gauge is used to evaluate the condition of the wheel and a wheel turning machine to give wheel an exact shape suitable for running on rails.

Srinivas Reddy says 24 trains are sent for complete checking after every trip and shifted to the sick line area for repair work for major problems. The depot follows a fixed maintenance schedule: trains with ICF coaches – nine months and LHB coaches - 18 months, of travel roll into the shed for intermediate overhaul (IOH), where a thorough inspection is done. There are six pit lanes of varied lengths to accommodate five trains having a range of 16 to 26 coaches. Apart from those 24 trains, there are other 20 under the other end maintenance and 20 through trains, that come in, he says.

The entire set of operations of cleaning and fixing must be done in eight hours and the coaches are put to test. The breaking system and other problems are attended to and is given a brake power certificate, ensuring 100 percent safety. “If the coaches are not departed on time or in any event of failure, we are questioned by our superiors,” said T Prabhu. The staff is always reminded of the likely dangers for the commuters if they are lackadaisical, he adds.

At a distance of three kilometres from the depot is the mechanised laundry house which uses dosing machines with pumped in detergent, de-stainer, clout, softener, clout for stain removal, and steam to dry and iron, the bed sheets, pillow covers and face towels supplied to the passengers. The laundry house washes blankets and allow them to dry in room with a temperature of 30 degree Celsius.

Commuters lack civic sense, says Prasad, CNW supervisor, and adds that they leave the coaches in a mess - leftover eatables, unflushed toilets, and scribbling on berths and iron coaches. Signboard instructions not to dispose bottles and papers in the toilet are not heeded to, bottles and other scrap block the tube leading to the six-chambered bio-toilet, and thus reducing its efficiency. Prasad shows this correspondent the appalling conditions in the Danapur Express, “We want passengers to keep coaches tidy and treat them as their own property”.

Hope better sense prevails! (J-Hub)

By: Sushma Nagaraju