The Railway Board has sanctioned around Rs. 50 crore for the establishment of a Main Line Electrical Multiple Unit (MEMU) car shed at Tiruchi. This would be a first-of-its-kind facility in Tiruchi Railway Division.
The sanction for the setting up of the MEMU shed came recently after a detailed proposal was sent from the Tiruchi Railway Division to the Southern Railway headquarters and forwarded to the Railway Board for approval and sanction.
The proposed MEMU shed would come up on a vast expanse of railway land measuring 62.72 acres behind the Manjathidal railway station near Tiruchi. With the sanction from the Railway Board having come through and the site for the establishment of the proposed shed identified, a detailed estimate would be prepared for its construction. The Southern Railway Construction Organisation would be entrusted with the task of executing the project based on the requirements of the Tiruchi Railway Division.
The proposed shed would be in a position to accommodate a formation of 16 MEMU coaches at a time. The shed would encompass facilities such as a couple of inspection pit lines for examination of the MEMU coaches, a couple of stabling lines, one washing line and one turntable line for reversing the motor coach, a senior railway officer told The Hindu. The entire shed would be electrified with five-kilometre wiring to be done inside the facility to accommodate MEMU coach formation.
The officer said drawings for the shed would be made and tenders would be floated to identify the agency for its construction. The agency for constructing the MEMU shed was expected to be fixed in six to eight months after floating the tender and the entire project was likely to be completed in one-and-half to two years time thereafter.
Although Tiruchi Division has two Broad Gauge Coaching Depots — one near the Tiruchi railway junction and another at Villupuram Junction — where primary maintenance of conventional railway coaches and Diesel Electrical Multiple Unit rakes were being done, there was no MEMU shed in the division at present. MEMU car sheds were functioning at present in Chennai, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram railway divisions.
The sanction for the MEMU coaches shed comes at a time when most of the railway sections falling under the vast limits of Tiruchi Division including the Villupuram - Vriddhachalam - Ariyalur - Tiruchi chord line stretch; Villupuram - Cuddalore - Chidambaram- Mayiladuthurai - Thanjavur main line stretch; Tiruchi - Thanjavur - Tiruvarur - Nagapattinam - Nagore - Karaikal stretch have been electrified. However, no MEMU trains were being operated presently either on the chord line stretch or the mainline section or in the Division although there was a demand from rail users for operation of its services.
