This year, Indian Railways (IR) has cleared about 3.8 lakh cubic meters of muck and garbage from Mumbai suburban network by running six muck special trains. Over Western Railway (WR), 2.1 lakh cubic meters of muck was cleared, while 1.7 lakh cubic meters was cleared over Central Railway(CR).
The garbage and debris lead to water logging on the tracks as it obstructs the flow of rainwater sideways. It also results in accumulation of water on tracks.
To ensure uninterrupted train services on Mumbai’s suburban railway system IR undertakes several pre-monsoon preparatory works.
These works include cleaning of culverts, de-silting of drains, installations of high power pumps besides special maintenance of infrastructure. The muck and garbage thus collected are all cleared and removed with the help of special muck trains.
To remove the muck from the tracks, muck special trains, which are specially modified EMU rakes were run during the night time. Heavy earth machines such as JCBs, Poclains and the like were also deployed to clear the muck.
Scrap Sale
WR disposed of about 3300 MT of scrap scrap /used rails as against 5400 MT approximately last year. Similarly, CR sold about 11600 MT of scrap /used rails this year as against 10400 MT approximately last year.
In addition WR removed about 14000 redundant sleepers lying near the tracks while CR removed about 46000 sleepers. Clearing of sleepers using track machines enable free flow of rain water.
Clearing the muck is not the job of Railways in my opinion. By making a part of department of the Government, Railways is used for all sundry jobs and Railway will loose sight of main function of transportation of men and materials. What a sad story?