Railways will embark on a work to deep-clean the ballast between the Changanassery and Kottayam stations from Sunday after 18 years.
The 37-day work, being taken up on the 20-km stretch with the help of six machines, is to improve travelling comfort and reduce wear and tear on locomotives, coaches, and wagons.
A senior official in the engineering wing said the deep-clean ballast was to be carried out once every 10 years and was long overdue on the stretch.
The ballast gets crushed by the hammering effect of wheels and axles of trains. As a result, the cushioning effect of the ballast is lost, which leads to the lateral and vertical movement of coaches.
Railways will deploy ballast cleaning machines, a ballast packing machine, and a track stabiliser for the work. The cleaning machinery digs out the ballast below the sleepers, sieves, and spews out the broken ballast and dust accumulated over the years.
The packing machine is deployed for re-packing the cleaned ballast below the sleepers. High frequency vibration from the track stabiliser is also used. Everyday, the work will be taken up only for three hours to avoid major disruption of services.
The work will commence at 9 p.m. and conclude around 12 midnight, the official said.
Railways have announced regulation of trains except on Fridays and Saturdays during the period to take up the work. The 16347 Thiruvananthapuram- Mangaluru Express will have a late start at 10.20 p.m. from here till May 4. The 16343 Thiruvananthapuram- Palakkad Town Amrita Express will be detained at stations in the Kottayam section for about 20 minutes.
The 16311 Bikaner- Kochuveli Express on Thursdays and the 19260 Bhavnagar- Kochuveli Express on Mondays are likely to be detained for one to two hours in the Kottayam section.
The 16348 Mangaluru- Thiruvananthapuram Express will be detained for 30 minutes in the Kottayam section.
