New broad gauge bay inaugurated at Golden Rock workshop

The newly-converted broad gauge (BG) bay for undertaking both light schedule and heavy schedule attention of EMD locomotives, was declared open by the Trichy divisional railway manager (DRM) Manjula Rangarajan at the Golden Rock Workshop on Wednesday. The bay has been constructed with elevated platforms with a pit facility for attending to the bogie. The Railway Board has sanctioned Rs 14 crore for augmenting the infrastructure at the 42-year-old diesel loco shed that has bagged the annual rolling shield for best maintained shed five times in the last nine years. Manjula Rangarajan also commissioned the newly-installed reverse osmosis (RO) type water purifying plant for the benefit of 750 employees of this shed. The 250 litre per hour capacity RO plant happened to be a new year's gift to the employees, she said. The workforce at the shed maintain 147 diesel locomotives (71 ALCO type, 53 EMD type high horse power locomotives and 23 DEMU power cars).

Since July 2011, the diesel loco shed at Golden Rock became the first in the country to maintain EMD type locomotives with 4500 horse power that are used extensive in both freight service and in express train service. "In order to home these new breed of locomotives, the Railway Board had sanctioned Rs 14 crore for augmenting the infrastructure and for the procurement of various tools, machineries required for maintenance," she explained.

The DRM further said that the new bay had been specially constructed with elevated platforms for working alongside the locomotives and with a pit facility for attending to the bogie and under gear items with much ease. These bays would provide additional space required for increased holding of these locomotives, she added.

Earlier, under the leadership of the DRM, all the officers and division and engineers of diesel shed and faculty of Diesel Traction and Training Centre (DTTC) carried out mass tree plantation at the training centre. Only treated effluent water discharged with the effluent treatment plant would be used for watering these trees, she said.

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