ProUI

East Coast Railway (ECoR) has achieved record loading performance during August to become the largest freight loading zone of Indian Railways.ECoR has loaded 12.41 million tonnes of freight in August posting an increase of 26.4 per cent over the corresponding month last year.From the first five months of the current fiscal 2013-14, ECoR has loaded 61.83 million tonnes of freight as compared to 52.28 million tonnes during the corresponding period last year with an increase of 18.3 per cent.

Revenue has also increased with ECoR earning Rs 4,878.46 crore in the first five months of the current financial year, which is 18.2 per cent more than the corresponding period last year.

ECoR had earned Rs 4,127.02 crore during the first five months of 2012-13.  In August, ECoR earned Rs 932.28 crore in originating goods as compared to Rs 754.27 crore achieved in same month last year.

Incremental loading of ECoR is the highest in Indian Railways surpassing the loading figure of South-East Central Railway at 60.98 million tonnes and South Eastern Railway at 55.47 million tonnes of freight till August 2013.

During August, South East Central Railway loaded 11.465 million tonnes and South Eastern Railway loaded 11.05 million tonnes of freight, while ECoR loaded 12.41 million tonnes.

Palakkad: Many trains plying towards the Malabar region will be cancelled following doubling of rail lines on the Shornur-Mangalore route. Passenger trains will not ply during doubling works while a few Express trains will be partially cancelled. This will come into force from September 25. The non-interlock works at the Shornur station, as part of doubling works, will be completed in about 22 days.During the days of work, some passenger trains would be allowed but railway is planning to allow only goods trains and avoid passenger trains. During those 21 days, the Ernad, Janashathabdi and Venad expresses will end service at Thrissur.Bilaspur, Korba, Ahalyanagar, Gorakpur, Bokaro, Sabari expresses will not touch Shoranur junction. Nilambur train will have only one service. A passenger train will ply from Coimbatore till Palakkad for the benefit of passengers from Tamil Nadu. The cancellation of services during pooja holidays and Bakrid would affect the common man. As there is hike in bus charges due to fuel price hike, majority depend on passenger trains for travel.

The doubling on Shornaur-Ernakulam route was completed way back in 1984 when the service began only after the Shoranur-Managlore route. To complete electrification till Mangalore, the first overbridge in Kozhikode railway station need to be abolished. Railway has been seeking an alternative suggestion .

Temporary Augmentation in Double Decker Train.

LUDHIANA: With the festivals of Diwali and Chhath Puja less than two months away, there has been a heavy demand for railway tickets. Several city residents, who hail from UP, MP and Bihar, are finding it hard to get confirmed tickets for their journey back home. Dhananjay Kumar, an employee of an automobile parts factory who hails from Bihar: "I am planning to go home in October, to celebrate Diwali. I tried to book tickets for the same online, but found that the waiting list for 3-tier AC class is more than 50 for any train."

Many residents wishing to go to their home states are annoyed with the bookings on the IRCTC website. "The website crashes every now and then, and the number of tickets being booked at a time is very less. And even as a person manages to get to the website, the waiting list is too long. However, it is surprising that there is no waiting list for Diwali day," adds Anil Pandey, an employee of a garment factory who belongs to Lucknow, and who wishes to go home to celebrate Diwali and Chhath Puja with his parents there.

As the waiting list is growing by the day, residents are demanding that railways should start special trains around the festivals. Says Suresh Kumar of Indore, who works in a hosiery unit: "The rush during the festive season is not unexpected for the authorities. They should have taken advance measures to ensure that those wishing to travel home to celebrate festivals don"t face problems. Even now, they can start new trains for the festival season."

Meanwhile, railway authorities say that the rush for tickets around the festival season is always there. "Given the fact that the rush will be there during the coming festival season too, we are soon announcing the start of holiday special trains, and are also planning to attach more coaches in the existing trains," said NC Goyal, Divisional Railway Manager of Ferozepur division, who also looks after railway operations in the Ludhiana area.

Cost of putting up facade was Rs4.8 cr; removing window panels to set up blowers will cost Rs10-20 lakh.

Western Railway seems to have built for itself a white elephant in glass.

Over two-and-a-half years after covering the ground-plus-seven floors of the Churchgate administrative building with almost 16,000 square feet of glass, Western Railway (WR) officials are literally feeling the heat.

The 1,200-odd employees working inside the building have been complaining about how the glass panels have stopped the cross-ventilation of air for which this 1956-built structure was known. But the authorities seem to have reached a dead end as they scramble for a solution. 

One idea that has been floated is to remove 40 to 60 window glass panels to restore cross-ventilation. The WR’s construction department is studying whether blowers or heavy-duty exhaust fans can be placed to bring back the airiness. But that will come for a price: the project had cost around Rs4.85 crore, and removal of these glass panels and setting up of blowers can cost anything between Rs10 lakh and Rs20 lakh.

For many within the railways, the project seemed ill-planned from the beginning. According to some officials, the move was hasty which got conceived in the end of  2010 and got completed by the start of 2011, with RN Verma as the general manager.

Initially designed to replicate the intricate track-crossings of a railway yard on the glass, the plan had to be modified with the engineers realising that certain portion had to be kept free of glass in order to cool the building. “The change from the ‘yard on glass’ model to the current one robbed the plan of its aesthetics.

Now, it is just a mistake we are trying to rectify. The problem is that with a length of 50 metres and width of 30 metres, this building has huge floor plates and getting a central air-conditioning system won’t be easy,” said a senior WR official.

Initially the WR officials had boasted about having a railway office at par with those found in developed countries, but the mood got changed after the employees started complaining of heat and lack of ventilation.

Efforts to address the problem turned futile after the Railway Board shelved the Rs14-crore plan of central air-conditioning for the building. The plan by the then general manager Kul Bhushan in mid-2011 was supposed to have been added in the Pink Book  the official book enlisting works sanctioned for a particular year.

But, the prohibitive cost made the ministry to rethink. “A Rs14-crore project for just one building was impossible when the total amount given for all of WR during the year 2012-13 in the Pink Book was around Rs63 crore,” said an official.

WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said mitigating measures were being worked upon, though nothing had been finalised as yet.

Union Tribal Affairs Minister, V. Kishore Chandra Deo's suggestion to the Antony committee for shifting the East Coast railway headquarters from Bhubaneswar to Vishakhapatnam has triggered a wave of protests in the state.

The committee has been set up by the Centre to address the concerns of leaders from coastal Andhra Pradesh to ensure smooth division of the state. Deo is an MP from Andhra Pradesh. Presently Vishakhapatnam is part of East Coast railway.

While the ruling Biju Janata Dal began a three day protests from Thursday by staging demonstrations outside railway stations across the state, the opposition Congress and the BJP are equally upset with Deo's proposal to the Antony committee.  

The issue has given the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD some more ammunition against the UPA-ruled Centre. Finance minister,  Prasanna Acharya said the suggestion was yet another conspiracy of the Centre against Odisha.  "The headquarters of the East Coast railway was established in Bhubaneswar in 2003 after a long struggle. It cannot be taken away from the state," he said.  

The BJD youth wing president, Sanjay Dasburma, who led the protests on Thursday, demanded the resignation of both Deo and  union minister of chemicals and fertilizers, Srikant Jena, who hails from Odisha, "In fact state Congress president Jaydev Jena should prevail upon the Prime Minister to drop Deo from his cabinet," said Dasburma.   

Deo, meanwhile, has sought to clear the air over the issue saying that he had suggested that South East Railway headquarters be shifted to Bhubaneswar first and then the East Coast Railways headquarters be moved to Vishakhapatnam with Vijaywada division under its control.

This, according to him, will benefit both Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. The East Coast (EC) Railway presently covers railway network in eastern and southern Odisha and parts of Andhra Pradesh.   

Union minister, Srikant Jena, on the other hand, dismissed the demands for his resignation saying that the views expressed by Deo were his own. He also said that he had played a crucial role in establishing the East Coast railway headquarter in Bhubaneswar. " They are unnecessarily playing it up," said Jena.     

Senior BJP leader, Bijay Mohapatra said that East Coast railway headquarter will not be allowed to be moved from city under any circumstances. " People will thwart any such designs of the Centre," he said.

Two Government Railway Police personnel posted at Mahim railway station foiled a burglary at an industrial gala located near the station early on Thursday. One of the robbers was nabbed.

The two constables, Sangram Mulamwar and Haribhau Runar, have been rewarded with Rs 5,000 in cash by the GRP commissioner for their alertness.

The incident took place around 4.30am when the while the GRP two constables were guarding a platform. "The two constables heard locals residents and shopowners raise an alarm outside the railway station and spotted a group of burglars fleeing with a gunny bag containing Rs 2.7 lakh and a gold coin," a senior police inspector said.

The GRP constables arrested oneconfronted one of the burglars, Rajesh Kadam, and recovered the loot. The other two accused are on the run. TNNThe loot was recovered from them , Rajesh Kadam. "Kadam was wielding a chopper and threatened to hurt them. One of the constables then flung a lathi, aimed at Kadam's leg, causing him to collapse. The gunny bag containing the loot was recovered from Kadam. He was later handed over to the Mahim police after the two constables requested for reinforcements from the GRP," Trivedi added.

The owner of the industrial gala, Ashok Jain, was informed about the burglary by the GRP.

Kadam's associate, Ajay, who is suspected to be the leader of the gang, is on the run. The police are now checking Kadam's previous criminal record. Both, Ajay and Kadam, are believed to be residents of Mahim slums.

Palakkad: Many trains plying towards the Malabar region will be cancelled following doubling of rail lines on the Shornur-Mangalore route. Passenger trains will not ply during doubling works while a few Express trains will be partially cancelled. This will come into force from September 25. The non-interlock works at the Shornur station, as part of doubling works, will be completed in about 22 days.During the days of work, some passenger trains would be allowed but railway is planning to allow only goods trains and avoid passenger trains. During those 21 days, the Ernad, Janashathabdi and Venad expresses will end service at Thrissur.Bilaspur, Korba, Ahalyanagar, Gorakpur, Bokaro, Sabari expresses will not touch Shoranur junction. Nilambur train will have only one service. A passenger train will ply from Coimbatore till Palakkad for the benefit of passengers from Tamil Nadu. The cancellation of services during pooja holidays and Bakrid would affect the common man. As there is hike in bus charges due to fuel price hike, majority depend on passenger trains for travel.

The doubling on Shornaur-Ernakulam route was completed way back in 1984 when the service began only after the Shoranur-Managlore route. To complete electrification till Mangalore, the first overbridge in Kozhikode railway station need to be abolished. Railway has been seeking an alternative suggestion .

Cost of putting up facade was Rs4.8 cr; removing window panels to set up blowers will cost Rs10-20 lakh.

Western Railway seems to have built for itself a white elephant in glass.

Over two-and-a-half years after covering the ground-plus-seven floors of the Churchgate administrative building with almost 16,000 square feet of glass, Western Railway (WR) officials are literally feeling the heat.

The 1,200-odd employees working inside the building have been complaining about how the glass panels have stopped the cross-ventilation of air for which this 1956-built structure was known. But the authorities seem to have reached a dead end as they scramble for a solution. 

One idea that has been floated is to remove 40 to 60 window glass panels to restore cross-ventilation. The WR’s construction department is studying whether blowers or heavy-duty exhaust fans can be placed to bring back the airiness. But that will come for a price: the project had cost around Rs4.85 crore, and removal of these glass panels and setting up of blowers can cost anything between Rs10 lakh and Rs20 lakh.

For many within the railways, the project seemed ill-planned from the beginning. According to some officials, the move was hasty which got conceived in the end of  2010 and got completed by the start of 2011, with RN Verma as the general manager.

Initially designed to replicate the intricate track-crossings of a railway yard on the glass, the plan had to be modified with the engineers realising that certain portion had to be kept free of glass in order to cool the building. “The change from the ‘yard on glass’ model to the current one robbed the plan of its aesthetics.

Now, it is just a mistake we are trying to rectify. The problem is that with a length of 50 metres and width of 30 metres, this building has huge floor plates and getting a central air-conditioning system won’t be easy,” said a senior WR official.

Initially the WR officials had boasted about having a railway office at par with those found in developed countries, but the mood got changed after the employees started complaining of heat and lack of ventilation.

Efforts to address the problem turned futile after the Railway Board shelved the Rs14-crore plan of central air-conditioning for the building. The plan by the then general manager Kul Bhushan in mid-2011 was supposed to have been added in the Pink Book  the official book enlisting works sanctioned for a particular year.

But, the prohibitive cost made the ministry to rethink. “A Rs14-crore project for just one building was impossible when the total amount given for all of WR during the year 2012-13 in the Pink Book was around Rs63 crore,” said an official.

WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said mitigating measures were being worked upon, though nothing had been finalised as yet.

Kochi: Directions have been issued to make peak hour trains like the Kottayam-Ernakulam passenger stick to the scheduled time by minimizing the halts at intermediate points for purposes like crossings, said Divisional Railway Manager Rajesh Agarwal, on Thursday.

“I’ve received complaints from office-goers that trains frequently run behind schedule and as a result, they never reach their offices on time. A two-minute technical halt would result in the train getting late by 20 minutes”, he said.

Earlier, the DRM travelled in the Quilon-Kottayam-Ernakulam passenger, interacting with commuters to know the deficiency in customer services. “We’ll run trains on an hourly basis between Ernakulam and Kottayam soon. For that, priority will be given to track doubling in the section”. DRM said