A two-day meeting of the Carriage Maintenance Group of Indian Railways with a focus on issues pertaining to passenger safety and comfort as well as those to improve aesthetics of train coaches got under way on Friday in Hyderabad.
Member (Rolling Stock) of Railway Board Ravindra Gupta, who chaired the meeting, told the inaugural session that Indian Railways is contemplating to retrofit all coaches with bio-toilets by March 2019. The challenges of maintaining such toilets need to be met by acquiring expertise and experimenting with technology. Adequate training should be imparted to the staff involved in their maintenance, he said.
Coach ventilation, he added, was another area that needed to be accorded priority by all the zones, building on the initiative of some of the zones already experimenting with it.
Underscoring the significance of enhancing the use of mechanised coach cleaning and introduction of quick watering plants, Mr. Gupta said a team of officials from Indian Railways will visit Germany to study and examine the mechanised coach maintenance facilities there. He also stressed the need to ensure quality of coach production so as to match customer satisfaction.
The Carriage Maintenance Group Meeting is the 17th in the series. Addressing the meeting, South Central Railway General Manager Vinod Kumar Yadav said user expectations in the areas of passenger amenities, cleanliness and punctuality were rising. Value added initiatives such as installing digital temperature devices and supply of disposable towels to the AC coach passengers ought to be examined for implementation. Reduction in coach maintenance time to facilitate running of more passenger services is something that needs to be looked into, he said.
A press release from SCR said the meeting was expected to identify measures for improvement in all the aspects of rail users satisfaction besides important issues of maintenance related to train running, like punctuality and reliability. On the agenda, are also issues concerning use of latest material and improved technology in coach maintenance and disaster management including under water cutting equipment, foldable ramp for physically challenged persons and improvement in Braille system.
A booklet on ‘Tech – Talk’ highlighting carriage maintenance issues was released on the occasion.
