After resuming operations on May 7 with 33% employees, the Golden Rock Railway Workshop in Tiruchi has dispatched 24 broad gauge passenger coaches, including two air-conditioned compartments, after overhauling them.
With the workshop functioning with 50% of its workforce from Wednesday, it has planned to dispatch 50 more passenger coaches by this month-end.
The workshop which remained shut due to the lockdown since late March re-opened early this month adhering to due precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Chief Workshop Manager Shyamadhar Ram told The Hindu on Wednesday that the workshop had begun to function with 50% of its total employee strength from Wednesday consequent to further relaxations announced by the district administration.
The workshop would function in single shift with revised timings from 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m and night shift has not been permitted. Engaged in core activities of periodic overhaul of passenger coaches and broad gauge diesel locomotives besides manufacturing container wagons for the Container Corporation of India, the workshop has a total workforce exceeding 4,000.
Mr. Shyamadhar Ram said the workshop would be dispatching six broad gauge diesel locomotives by this month-end to the Southern Railway. The workshop had been dispatching over 1,000 passenger coaches and more than 100 diesel locomotives every year before the lockdown was announced.
Simultaneously, intermediate overhaul of bogies were also underway at the workshop which has over 30 units functioning within its sprawling premises. Core activities have resumed by ensuring personal distancing among employees to whom masks have been given, Mr. Shyamadhar Ram said.
Thermal scanning of employees was being done at the workshop entrances and disinfectants was being sprayed twice a day inside the establishment. Disinfectant was also being sprayed on freight vehicles entering the workshop.
