Title - Railways trims trees to prevent power outages

Southern Railway officials have started trimming the branches of fully grown shade giving avenue trees in Railway Colony, East Tambaram, to prevent any untoward incident of power tripping and related problems, while residents appealed to the railway administration to consider transporting the cables underground.

The railway administration maintained that they were only pruning those branches that came into close contact with the overhead high tension and low tension power supply cables. This was not only a preventive measure, but also keeping in mind requests from a number of the 700 families living in the quarters in the Railway Colony.

On Monday, staff started pruning the branches of the fully grown trees such as ‘pungan’ and ‘thoonga moonji.’ “The trees are massive and are more than 60 years old. The Railway Colony was created in the early 1930’s or even slightly earlier. Some of the massive trees along the streets are as old as the colony,” said T.Manohar, a third-generation resident of East Tambaram.

Railway staff said that when the branches fell, the overhead power supply cables snapped and the sudden outage resulted in burning of cables inside the quarters of the workers and their families.