Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

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vsunder
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Instead of overly focusing on Vande Bharat all the time(incidentally tomorrow the Madgaon--Goa to Mumbai VB will be inaugurated) why don't people focus on strategic railway projects and supercritical projects?? Here is a list:

1. Sivok--Rangpo (Sikkim) railway line what is the progress, and on to Nathu La. 6 tunnels complete out of 14.

2. Jiribam--Imphal(Manipur) line, what happened with the violence there, did it delay the project. It was 93% complete
at last look.

3. Line to Aizawl in Mizoram.

4. Line to Kohima in Nagaland.

5. What is the LA issue in Meghalaya and line to Shillong status, with the Khasi students agitating against the line.

6. Third line works, Gudur to Vijayawada to Kazipet and on to Nagpur to relieve congestion. Chirala to Bapatla should be soon commissioned and so should Nidubrolu to Bapatla, leaving 100km between Vijayawada to Gudur to be tripled.

7. Katni grade separator, what is the progress?

8. Itarsi, Powarkheda to Jujharpur grade separator to relieve congestion in Itarsi., progress?

9. Mhow--Sanawad gauge conversion and Khandwa to Akot gauge conversion, providing the shortest route between Delhi and Hyderabad.

10. Indore to Manmad new line what is the status, has LA started?

11. Davangere to Tumkur new line, has the new KA government said anything with LA or will it kill this quick route to Hubli from
Bangalore?

12. Speed increase to 130 kmph on major sections of IR, where are we?

13. Pilgrim circuit, status of Varanasi---Ayodhya---Lucknow doubling and electrification, Prayagraj to Varanasi double line via Jhusi, Jhusi bridge over Ganga status?


14. WDFC status of sections under Tata projects??
OK this is for starters.
vsunder
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

OK to start things here is an interview with Mohinder Singh Project manager of Sivok--Rangpo line(Sikkim) 12,000 cr, Dec 2024 completion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeawMv-WLwU
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by yensoy »

Derailment of coach/wagon resulting in infringement of opposite path, inevitably followed by collision and severe damage has become a not-so-rare occurrence. This has to be fixed systemically, if necessary by increasing separation between tracks. Signaling and sensors alone won't help because it will be too late. Of course track and bogies have to be maintained at a higher level of quality than they are today. We cannot have hundreds of people perish in an accident and claim to be a world power at the same time. The irony of introducing Vande Bharat when such accidents are happening is stark. It is not an isolated incident, just a few months ago EDFC (or some goods line I recall) was rendered out of service for basically the same cause, luckily no major death counts because it was goods + goods only.
(please don't give examples of Santiago de Compostela, or Hualien or Wenzhou - these have been studied extensively and circumstances leading to these disasters also criticized)
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by fanne »

I hope sabotage angle is looked into
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by ritesh »

Despite the best efforts of Modi govt, the rail bhavan mandarins have been completely incompetent in taking railways into the 21st century.

Bharat cannot rise without doing away with britshit legacy be it in L&O admin judiciary or governance in general.

Faster we do away of all the colonial overhang of Brits and mugols better would be for dharmiks in general.

Om Shanti Shanti to the departed souls.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

Why post such utter rubbish? Do you even read what you post? If you just want to vent go to twitter etc.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by SBajwa »

This looks like a sabotage where the culprits knew 3 trains and their timings and only derailed one to cause this.

Remember all the incidents of stoning Vande Bharat and failed derailments
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by rajkumar »

vsunder wrote:Instead of overly focusing on Vande Bharat all the time(incidentally tomorrow the Madgaon--Goa to Mumbai VB will be inaugurated) why don't people focus on strategic railway projects and supercritical projects?? Here is a list:

1. Sivok--Rangpo (Sikkim) railway line what is the progress, and on to Nathu La. 6 tunnels complete out of 14.

2. Jiribam--Imphal(Manipur) line, what happened with the violence there, did it delay the project. It was 93% complete
at last look.

3. Line to Aizawl in Mizoram.

4. Line to Kohima in Nagaland.

5. What is the LA issue in Meghalaya and line to Shillong status, with the Khasi students agitating against the line.

6. Third line works, Gudur to Vijayawada to Kazipet and on to Nagpur to relieve congestion. Chirala to Bapatla should be soon commissioned and so should Nidubrolu to Bapatla, leaving 100km between Vijayawada to Gudur to be tripled.

7. Katni grade separator, what is the progress?

8. Itarsi, Powarkheda to Jujharpur grade separator to relieve congestion in Itarsi., progress?

9. Mhow--Sanawad gauge conversion and Khandwa to Akot gauge conversion, providing the shortest route between Delhi and Hyderabad.

10. Indore to Manmad new line what is the status, has LA started?

11. Davangere to Tumkur new line, has the new KA government said anything with LA or will it kill this quick route to Hubli from
Bangalore?

12. Speed increase to 130 kmph on major sections of IR, where are we?

13. Pilgrim circuit, status of Varanasi---Ayodhya---Lucknow doubling and electrification, Prayagraj to Varanasi double line via Jhusi, Jhusi bridge over Ganga status?


14. WDFC status of sections under Tata projects??
OK this is for starters.
Good list, let's do some digging
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Here are some more questions

1. What happened to new DFCs that were proposed, East coast DFC, East to West DFC, has CCEA cleared them?

2. Bhanupali to Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh line) under construction status, and status of this line onwards to Leh? Strategic line.

3. Bangalore Cantt to Whitefield quadrupling status?

4. Bangalore to Hosur doubling project status?

5. Bangalore commuter line project, what happened after new govt took over as K-RIDE was implementing it?

6. Station re-development projects at Kanpur, Thrissur, Rameshwaram, Kanniyakumari, Trivandrum, Bangalore Cantt., and a whole lot of other places that are tendered out.

7. Guntur----Narasaraopet-----Nandyal---Dhoni---Guntakal doubling an important East-west doubling connecting eastern ports and Mormugoa. Follow the channel My Way Railway with his Telugu commentaries on youtube on this part, excellent coverage.

8. Doubling and Electrification in Goa that has been held up by church groups and moving very slowly, progress?

9. Penukonda to Dharmavaram doubling to finish Bangalore to Mumbai doubling, progress? Dec 2024 is completion but nobody has posted any videos for months

10. Pune to Miraj doubling lot of work left as LA was hindered a lot by Pawarful lobbies near Karad and other places. Also CR is a bad, inefficient zone. Londa to Miraj is very close to being entirely doubled and should be in about 3-4 months. This was a Suresh Prabhu initiated project. A lot of the projects here were initiated by him and it is he who got the lumbering Railway ministry moving after the lethargy of UPA.

11. New Pamban Bridge to Rameshwaram which is close to completion by August(??) Old Pamban bridge is now closed since Feb. no trains to Rameshwaram.

12. Third lining between Howrah and Nagpur, more or less the sections left are Kharagpur to Tatanagar which is also mostly done and Gondia to Nagpur where tripling is done in parts. What is the status?

13. There are a large number of projects of new lines and doubling in Odisha that were completed under the radar or are still going on. Some new lines are through Naxal belts. For example this expressway though a road project scarcely gets mention in the national press though work is ongoing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raipur%E2 ... Expressway

Here are some Odisha projects most for evacuation of coal and minerals:

Supercritical project as identified by Railways:
https://odishabytes.com/odisha-96-38-co ... -complete/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 434062.cms

https://www.sagarmala.gov.in/projecttra ... -sambalpur

14. Jhansi to Agra Cantt. Third line and Chambal river bridge status? Jhansi to Bina third line status, 73% complete.
It is enough if some of you "adopt" some of these projects and become the "domain expert" on this forum, provide videos from a man on the scene viewpoint and some commentary if the video is in Telugu, Tamil etc for the nonspeaker. Usually such videos are the best as there is some skin in the game rather than cut and paste. I am not saying cut and paste is bad, but verify by a secondary source and practice due dilligence.
Last edited by vsunder on 03 Jun 2023 22:04, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by chetak »

SBajwa wrote:This looks like a sabotage where the culprits knew 3 trains and their timings and only derailed one to cause this.

Remember all the incidents of stoning Vande Bharat and failed derailments
Looking like an error in the switching circuits or it could also be human error but the status of the red and green signal lights is unclear at present.

It's likely that after the goods train was switched to the loop line, it appears like the points did not move back to the main line (even though they were correctly switched to move back to the main line per one report) What happened with the signal lights are not very clear and also if it happened, in fact, due to a circuit error or failure, or was it due to an unfortunate human error

The train that derailed was moving at full speed on one of the main lines but it derailed when it negotiated the curve to the loop line at the same high speed.

The accident happened at the Balasore station. The tracks in this entire section have already been doubled a long time ago and because it was at the station that the goods train had been shifted to the loop line to allow for the faster passenger train to take priority.

But one fact has emerged and that is the the derailment and collision happened when the fast moving passenger train negotiated the loop line curve at high speed and hit the goods train waiting on the lop line

The Balasore. station has two main lines and two loop lines, one attached to each of the main lines

Difficult to predict the movement of the goods train where the priority is always for the passenger trains. At the slightest requirement for a clear track, the goods train gets moved to a loop line to wait indefinitely until the track is available for the slower moving goods train..

So, SBajwa ji,

Your theory is highly unlikely because the chances of these trains arriving at the Balasore station and being available simultaneously at that point in time and space for any mischief maker to do the dirty is less than miniscule

Remember the departed..

Sabko Param Gati Mile.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Amber G. »

Very tragic.
During this very tragic situation, I am comforted by rescue efforts. I am impressed with out Railway minister,
Sharing two pictures:

The best Railway Minister in perhaps his worst adversity .. handling the situation and relentlessly standing at site during rescue operation..
Image
Image

- For US Audience, one of the news story I found is relatively not that bad (like many other stories - which has little news and lot of showing irrelevant negative stories..etc.. so sharing the url
.. nation's worst rail disasters
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by sanman »

Lots of empty job posts in railways -- is this true?

https://www.newindianexpress.com/thesun ... 64035.html
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

Amber G.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Amber G. »

^^^ Thanks,
I have lot of admiration for Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Sharing a nice thread
Image
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by williams »

What worries me is the rumors floating around that there was signal interference. The accident spot is a mere 13 km from the sensitive DRDO ITR, ie some of the sensitive goods will be transported to Balasore. :!:
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by rahulm »



Impressive speed of restoration and AV was there on site all the time until the lines were restored.

This vdo shows the first (goods) train to pas thru post restoration. I am surprised its a elec loco. To me it looks like a WAG9 with empty wagons. This means OHE has been fully restored on that line.

I was expecting only track to be restored with Diesels running for a few days but no, they have managed to "fully fit" one line at 12:05 AM.

It seems the second line will will also be "fully fit" in a few hours (may have happened by now).

Its am impressive recovery to service since Friday.

Also, unlike in the past, there was no IA deployment to assist clean up. NDRF was up to the task which implies it has reached a good level of resourcing, skills and capabilities.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

Yes, tragic as it is, it's heartening to see the response and commitment at every level.

For the first time I have seen some use of body bags. A few suggestions that can help NDRF and RPF / Police manage such situations even better:

- Cordon off accident sites as soon as they reach the site. Local helpers may sometimes do more harm than good, including to themselves. In some cases forensic evidence may be lost or corrupted.

- Transporting the injured in any available vehicle may seem like a good idea, but it can also cause serious harm or loss of life. Only ambulances with trained staff must handle the injured and dead once they reach the site

- NDRF had set up a field hospital in Turkey, not sure why this couldn't be done here. It can serve to perform triage, stabilise and then transfer the wounded for further care.

- They can use mobile electronic display boards with PA system to inform locals and non authorised to stay away and flash help line numbers, hospital to which the wounded are being sent, where is the dead bodies are being kept for identification etc. It will automatically get relayed by news channels.

- They need to have mobile resting and eating facilities for their own personnel.

- integrate all such things into an incident level based modular rescue and aid mobile camp/village. At least 1 such village capacity per state, ideally per each city with population > 1 crore.

India is a huge country with a huge population. Our disasters will need a very wide scaling capacity like no other country, except perhaps China.

And all NDRF people must wear gloves during field work. If hands are injured the person becomes useless.

Just a few observations.

Of course great respect and pranaams to their heroic work in extreme situations.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vera_k »

Time has an article with a link to a document reporting a previous incident with a bad signal interlock. That did not result in a collision fortunately.
Look for the link to the letter by a railways manager named Verma.

India train accident
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

There would be hundreds of thousands of points set using different levels of interlock. Manual, electronic and electronic relay IIRC. In the accident spot, the highest level of interlock was already implemented, which goes into failsafe mode and defaults the signal to red if the point is set incorrectly for whatever reason be it mech failure, cable cut, mechanism blocked etc.

The system works at a very high Sigma level if not we'd be having such accidents all over the huge network and all the time.

Of course no system is immune to tampering inadvertent or deliberate. That's what the CBI investigation will determine.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Rakesh »

Toilet gets called out... :P
98% of India's rail tracks were laid between 1870 and 1930
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 757132.cms
05 June 2023
https://twitter.com/SpokespersonIR/stat ... 82563?s=20 ---> We reject this @timesofindia article as baseless & devoid of facts. Irresponsible journalism at such a sensitive juncture is not something expected from a media house of your stature.

Here is a comparison of Running Track kilometers:

* 1950-51: 59,315 KM
* 2022-23: 1,07,832 KM

https://twitter.com/SpokespersonIR/stat ... 31009?s=20 ---> Editors at TOI should have checked these numbers before reporting them as facts. You are requested to kindly take this down.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by chetak »

Rakesh wrote:Toilet gets called out... :P
98% of India's rail tracks were laid between 1870 and 1930
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 757132.cms
05 June 2023
https://twitter.com/SpokespersonIR/stat ... 82563?s=20 ---> We reject this @timesofindia article as baseless & devoid of facts. Irresponsible journalism at such a sensitive juncture is not something expected from a media house of your stature.

Here is a comparison of Running Track kilometers:

* 1950-51: 59,315 KM
* 2022-23: 1,07,832 KM

https://twitter.com/SpokespersonIR/stat ... 31009?s=20 ---> Editors at TOI should have checked these numbers before reporting them as facts. You are requested to kindly take this down.
saar,

This is a toolkit in action

It's not as though toilet did not know

by now gora papers would have picked up and disseminated this news and the damage is already done

The gov should immediately stop funding all news papers and media via the govt ad route and start publishing employment and other media concerning govt department's news on the web.

No one will care or even bother to print retractions if any

Also, need to check the true offshore ownership of these media outlets and make public all such news

why just ask for it to be taken down, legal action should follow.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by nachiket »

CBI takes over probe into Odisha train accident case, files FIR
The CBI filed an FIR under Sections 337 (whoever causes hurt to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life), 338 (causing grievous hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others), 304 A (causing death by negligence), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Root cause, politics: Possible reasons for CBI inquiry into Odisha train accident that killed 278 people
Here are the possible reasons why a CBI inquiry was ordered in the Odisha train accident case.

Root cause: The root cause, according to the authorities, is a change in the electronic interlocking system, which is most likely not just a technical malfunction and required human interference. A CBI investigation might look into the possible motive or ignorance.
Quick fix for green signal to Coromandel likely cause of Odisha train accident
A ‘location box’, typically placed along tracks, holds a junction of connections to the point motor (the movable piece of rail that physically guides a train to its designated track when there are two divergent tracks), the signalling lights, the track-occupancy detectors, and virtually every critical piece that makes the ‘interlocking’ work seamlessly. Interlocking is a crucial safety mechanism and ensures trains move without any conflict with each other, preventing accidents.

In the ‘fail-safe’ logic built into Railway’s interlocking system, the main line on which the Coromandel Express was to pass, could not have got a “green” signal — a line clear signal — if the boom barrier of the level crossing was not down.
By looping the location box, the technician achieved an “all clear” signal for the Coromandel Express, overriding the fail-safe logic manually. In other words, the technician manually “completed” the circuit, bypassing certain nodes in a manner that the system would not recognise anything was amiss.
“This would have gone undetected but for one thing. The point, 17A,” said a senior official who is in the know of things. This manual act did not relay to the system that while the “all clear” signal was achieved, the point remained directed towards the loop line.
....
Pointing to a possible explanation why technicians on the ground “tampered” with the location box, the officials said, this helped them bypass a cumbersome “due process” of disconnecting an interlocking system that is also time consuming.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by nachiket »

^^Looks like the root cause may be someone attempting a jugaad short-cut to get around a malfunctioning level crossing gate instead of following established procedures because they took too long, without realizing the possible consequences of their actions. Just a depressing read but unsurprising. This kind of situation is never down to one or two individuals but is always systemic. We don't know if these individuals were being pressured by superiors to finish the work quickly and if using such jugaad methods had been encouraged in the past or if they had been trained well enough to understand the dangers of doing it. 300 people paid with their lives for that.

We can only hope the CBI probe nails everyone involved and not just that lone technician.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by yensoy »

+100 yes these kinds of workarounds are always systemic and it just so happens that this one instance led to disaster; an audit is certain to cover many more of these.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

In my news feed a couple of days ago, here was an article by a very senior ex IR official complaining that the speed of transformation in IR was too intense and the govt needs to slow down. If not it causes temptations to take shortcuts leading to disasters seemed to be the drift.

Didn't read the full article and can't find it now. If anyone has it, please do post a link.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Amber G. »

For me Ashwini Vaishnaw has a huge respect. I know the guy for quite a while and am quite impressed. Just a week or so ago, he was in USA promoting good work. (His other hat is IT minister) .. I posted in the other dhaga.. The man never gets tired.
viewtopic.php?p=2590674#p2590674
Meanwhile, Purdue is in news again signs a landmark deal in presence of India's honorable Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
Purdue and India establish milestone semiconductor alliance; sign partnership in the presence of Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
Agreement provides foundation to advance workforce development, joint research and innovation, and global industry collaborations

Image


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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by nachiket »

Cyrano wrote:In my news feed a couple of days ago, here was an article by a very senior ex IR official complaining that the speed of transformation in IR was too intense and the govt needs to slow down. If not it causes temptations to take shortcuts leading to disasters seemed to be the drift.

Didn't read the full article and can't find it now. If anyone has it, please do post a link.
The temptation to take shortcuts is always present in every system. The antidote to that is a safety culture with proper supervision and punitive measures if necessary to discourage such practices. And this has to be from the top down. Just look at the airline industry. Overall it is very safe thanks to new technology and better training but most of the accidents that do happen could have been avoided if pilots, airlines or maintenance personnel had just followed the procedures that already exist while doing their jobs.

As for IR, the transformation is intense now because there was none for far too long and now we have to play catch-up. I'm not sure how the IR official can blame accidents on transformation when there were far more of such disasters years ago when there was zero transformation happening in IR.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

The Entire East Coast is a mess. I have been saying this repeatedly that the system has little capacity and lines have been running at 120% capacity. I even put put in a tutorial of how to use Scott's formula to calculate capacity on sections. In the Vande this and Vande that which is the sh**t posters put here all got lost and now all are scurrying around like mice.

The CCEA plan to have an East Coast DFC is more urgent than ever. Look at the ore, coal freight movement it is very heavy. DFCs are not like building your 3 BHK in NOIDA. The main arm of the EDFC took years and years to build and only after 2014 actual construction started and the sootiya Railway board took 9 years to finally complete 900km from Dadri to Mughalsarai last week. This will allow down time on the tracks used by passenger trains for maintenance on the Howrah--Delhi route.

Regarding East coast land is a big problem and the Railways have no clear direction and budget. They get X amount of rupees per zone and then that goes for a whole number of projects. They do two or three block section line tripling and then wait for next tranche. So what I am saying is that the east coast DFC is phucked because of LA problems and the Railways has sort of gone in for slow line tripling in tiny sections. For example Vijayawada to Gudur on East coast, project started in 2014, 294 km tripling. In the 9 years still 100 km left for tripling. While DFC say EDFC 900 km finished by high quality quadrupled track, high speed turnouts, ROBs and Rail flyovers and all the gizmos because the GoI made it a SPV. You see the difference a steady budget and a separate corporation can do? Now this tripling on Vijayawada to Gudur will soon be overtaken by capacity, see my uploaded IR report on 3000MT loading by 2027. Then they will start with quadrupling the tracks when the capacity is already not there. Of course LA is the domain of idiot state CMs and both Telangana and AP have bonafide idiots who have contributed multiple ways ON RECORD to screwing IR with slow LA and now you can put KA in that basket.

The tripling further up Kharagpur ---Balasore----Bhadrak----Vijayawada is proceeding at even more glacial pace when quadrupling is the need of the hour. The freights have to be out of the passenger tracks and segregated in high density, high speed corridors. East Coast is a time bomb waiting to happen and it happened. Same thing is happening on the spine Delhi---Nagpur---Kazipet----Chennai. Block section by block section they are tripling and its a Band Aid at best to a very serious lack of capacity.

The Government in the last few days has woken up by indicating that one should use RSR, that is rail from the pit head to a port like Paradip and then ship and then rail again. Some people advocate power plants at the pit head then the cost of transmission of electricity is cheaper by wire than coal etc by rail. But having power plants at pit heads has serious environmental implications--- think Singrauli a mess.

http://www.worstpolluted.org/projects/display/147

But barge traffic is an alternative, though some say Bay of Bengal has a lot of storms, I do not know about that. Maybe some of the freight can indeed be moved by coastal barges, but then IR may cry as it means eating into their revenue, and throw a ruckus, they have been known to have a dog in the manger attitude in the past.

The land issue is pretty bad in AP. I do not like some of the geometry of the loops at wayside stations in the line tripling between Vijayawada and Gudur, but that is what they had to do with Land constraints. I have never been impressed with the intelligence of Railway board members, they just want to fill the position and quitely retire, never innovate or do some serious change, innovation is not in their blood, preserving the status quo is. I can give umpteen examples but what goes whose father and I have better and more important things to do.

Regarding East Coast DFC it was announced and then dropped along with East to West DFC, then on again, but CCEA has not cleared it and I have seen no DPR.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

I consider SCR among the better zones on IR whose construction department does better than other zones. They are doing Vijayawada to Gudur tripling. Even they have taken 9 years to triple 194km out of 294 km. End of this month they will finish Bapatla to Chirala another small section. Same Bapatla where AP agriculture univ. is.

Same glacial pace on the other trunk line Delhi to Chennai in SCR section. 207km Kazipet to Vijayawada, they have just about crossed 70km of line tripling in 9 years and this is also a VB route now and heavy coal moves from Singareni collieries and also ore. They just completed a 2-block section near Warangal and commissioned yesterday. That brought it to 70km.

Further North, Kazipet to Balharshah again going for 9 years, some 140 km done of line tripling out of 235km. Balharshah to Kazipet has a nunber of thermal stations like the super thermal station at Mancherial, coal washeries and ore processing plants and sees very heavy freight traffic clogging the main line. Tripling is band aid, by the time they finish it will be time to quadruple here.

If SCR is doing this, think of the other sh***y zones like NER, NFR, CR etc. Its crap there. For example CR has done nothing between Nagpur and Balharshah in the 9 years since line tripling was sanctioned Delhi to Chennai and today chairman railway board is Lahoti GM of CR, why should this useless c**t
be rewarded for non-performance. Same with Kasara to Kalyan tripling, dead in the water after 9 years and this useless f***k was running CR and he got rewarded. Its because CR is only focused on Mumbai suburban and does not care for anything else in its zone. Nagpur to Itarsi tripling same nonsense just a tiny part is tripled in the Satpura ghat section and lots of tunnels etc in Maramjhiri to Dharakoh section on this important Delhi to Chennai tripling languishes. Again CR lafda. CCEA sanctioned tripling thanks to Suresh Prabhu aeons ago and the dmb f**k railway guy says one should not have fast changes. What did they do for 9 years??
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

The 175km EDFC single line section from Sahnewal(Ludhiana) to New Pilkhani near Saharanpur was targeted to open end June. But GMR missed multiple deadlines in the past. As I predicted they will run a freight June 10th between Sahnewal to Shambhu on the Punjab/Haryana border and declare a 81km section open of the EDFC. Rest of the package to Pilkhani is now targeted for August. In fact a small portion is left around Ambala, the Ambala bypass for track linking about 5km. On this 5km section EDFC goes over the GT road via a bridge and over the Delhi to Ambala line by means of a rail flyover. Electrification work and station buildings remain to be completed between Shambhu and Pilkhani. All of the track is laid except for this 5 km section in the remaining 93km piece from Shambhu to New Pilkhani. This is a horribly congested section between Saharanpur to Ludhiana with freight clogging up tracks esp coal movement. This package is being constructed by GMR group. New Pilkhani to Khurja package is being done by L&T and they have opened a 125km section there and a 75km section remains to be opened. Out of this 75km unfinished section only 45km of track linking is left from Rohana Kalan to New Pilkhani. The article linked below has quotes from DFCCIL officials.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/harya ... -10-512179

This video has commentary and shows the EDFC between Ambala and Rajpura. You can see track linking and some OHE work between Ambala and Shambhu which will be complete in August. After Shambhu you can see final touches being given to OHE etc for the June 10th inauguration Shambhu to Sahnewal(Ludhiana). EDFC crossesthe Ambala to Amritsar line by means of a rail flyover(DFCs never intersect IR tracks) and the alignment changes and then EDFC slopes down on the right all the way to Rajpura.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur7jo0_3aMo
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Just to show you how idiotic the Railways are with capacity augmentation. 219km third line Vijayawada to Kazipet on the Delhi to Chennai trunk route. See number 36 in this link, the project was sanctioned 2012-2013.

https://scr.indianrailways.gov.in/cris/ ... xure-1.pdf

Now only 70km of third line done from Vijayawada West receiving cabin to Errupalem commissioned and two days ago Chintalpalli to Nelkonda near Warangal was commissioned 2 block sections. That is 70km of track was laid in a decade and 140km still left. You can see a video shot by someone 6 months ago for this route and large sections have nothing going on not a trace of basic earthworks. Near Warangal you can see a short section of track near completion and that 15-20km section roughly that got commissioned a few days ago. This is the idiocy of the Railways, a bureaucratic, stupid organization. I am using their own documents ^^^ to screw these idiots. The line if any on the left is the new third line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KKh23DpeA

There is some track linking near Dornakal in the video but that is not yet commissioned.

For comparison purposes, the DFCs between 2014 and 2023 have commissioned 1800km of double line track so far. That is what a SPV can accomplish and what sustained funding can do, albeit it comes from JICA and World Bank and there is a lot of oversight from the PMO for the DFCs.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by Cyrano »

We need another Gadkari type zeal and determination to overcome these challenges in developing IR network for the next century. The challenge with IR is far more difficult, entrenched establishment within the IR monolith and their ecosystem of contractors will fight very hard to protect their baronies and cash cows.
AV may be up to it, lets see how far he gets in the remaining term.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

This video is a drone shot between Panvel and Kopar of WDFC.

1. It shows that tremendous amount of work is left by Tata Construction making it impossible to finish by Dec. 2024 the most recent deadline. The target date for completion of the entire WDFC has already been moved three times and the project is running very, very late. Tata Construction does not seem to have the manpower to handle simultaneous projects. They did the new Parliament building, and are doing WDFC from Makarpura(Vadodara) to JNPT and Jewar international airport which are three mega show case projects.

2. The drone video finally brings clarity to some confusing changes in the alignment released by DFCCIL about 7-8 years ago.

3. The changes in alignment to be noticed are : existing platforms 3&4 at Panvel station will be demolished and the DFC will run there and make a turn, end run to JNPT port. Before the WDFC ran a bit towards Karjat and jumped over the Konkan railway and Karjat line and did all sorts of contortions towards JNPT.

4. Next change in alignment: You can see in the drone shots the construction of a viaduct at Kalamboli where the WDFC jumps over the Panvel to Vasai IR line and goes to the side of the under construction car maintenance shed at Kalamboli. There is a change in alignment of the WDFC from the left of the IR tracks to the right of IR tracks. Since DFCs do not have any surface crossings with IR, viaducts have to be built to accommodate changes in alignment. This is all new and not what was envisaged in the original alignment. These changes were motivated by lack of land and the immense developments that have taken place in the Panvel area which will accelerate given that the new international airport is coming up in these parts and better connectivity to south Mumbai given that the 22km long mega project Trans harbor bridge which is at the stage when asphalt is being put as part of finishing works is due to be opened in about 5 months.
The bridge will allow a 25 min ride from south Mumbai to this area which currently takes 2-3 hours. The Kalamboli viaduct of the WDFC is a major departure from the original published alignments of the WDFC from 7-8 years ago.

5. You can see no works have started to demolish Panvel station platforms and lay tracks and the earthworks in large parts are incomplete with incomplete minor bridges over small streams and canals which will certainly take more than a year with no work possible during heavy monsoon downpours.

6. The video ends with drone views of the twin girders over 6 CR lines at Kopar which were installed recently. The massive height of these girders in comparison to the small IR girder bridge is to accommodate double stacked container traffic on the WDFC when operational.

7. The videographer has promised two more videos. One drone shots of the remainder of this package: Kopar to Vasai of WDFC the remaining part of this 125km package JNPT to Vaitarna and another video of Panvel station when actual demolition starts and yard modification begins to let the WDFC pass through Panvel without any surface crossing or hindrance with IR.

Anyhow an excellent job by the videographer to address a confusing situation. I am sure to many people that finally brings clarity and focus to the alignment and shows that the project is far, far away from being complete though the DFCCIL officials will pretend otherwise offering cheery messages of imminent completion of the WDFC.

https://youtu.be/XHSosZ46WsY
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Contract Has been Signed on June 6th between AFCONS(INDIA) and NHSRCL(National High Speed Rail Corporation) for the construction of a 21km tunnel. Part of this tunnel about 7km goes under the intertidal waters of Thane creek so under the sea. This tunnel will carry the Bullet train out of Mumbai and the execution of this project is seen as a major engineering challenge. The TBMs to be employed are the largest to be used in India at 14.5meters. The tunnel is between Bandra-Kurla complex(BKC) and Shilphata.

https://nhsrcl.in/sites/default/files/n ... 810%29.pdf

A map of the tunnel alignment:

https://twitter.com/Sahilinfra2/status/ ... 34/photo/1

The tunnel is a single tube tunnel that will carry both the Up and Down lines, hence the large TBM.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

^^^ EDFC trial took place yesterday in Punjab. First section of EDFC to open in Punjab: New Chawapail to Shambhu

https://twitter.com/dfccil_india/status ... bY4acuAAAA

So not quite Ludhiana to Shambhu as the news article said ^^^^based on the interview with MD DFCCIL. New Chawapail is between Sirhind and Ludhiana. I thought it would be between Ludhiana and Shambhu, but perhaps they have to work a bit getting container yard ready at Ludhiana. The distance "trialled" is about 60km. New Chawapail is 20km from Ludhiana.

Next is Kalanour to New Pilkhani in 3 weeks, then by mid to late August all of the section Ludhiana to New Pilkhani.
The entire EDFC will be ready by Dec 2023 1330km. WDFC is the big issue. Sanand(Ahmedabad) to JNPT. Gujarat Ports are connected to NCR by WDFC, but JNPT is not and this clogs the Mumbai to Vadodara to Ahmedabad IR tracks and slows both passenger and freight. Latest completion date is Dec 2024 but that is also looking bad as Vaitarna to JNPT seems running very, very late.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Renders and work at Tirupati station re-development

https://twitter.com/RailMinIndia/status ... 80/photo/3
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

First Freight Train has been run successfully on the entire Punjab section of EDFC, 81 km from Ludhiana to Shambhu. This leaves 190km out of 1330km to operationalize on the EDFC. The remaining section is around Ambala (Haryana) and Saharanpur(UP)
A remaining 350km from Son Nagar(Bihar) to Andal (WB) is yet to see the start of construction even after 10 years due to several issues. The 190km will be completed by Dec 2023.

https://twitter.com/dfccil_india/status ... mApqguAAAA

WDFC. Here the portion left is from Sanand(outside Ahmedabad) to JNPT port Mumbai a distance of 500km approximately out of 1506km which is the total WDFC length. A target of Dec 2024 is now said to be the completion date.
Currently Dahej, Hazira a petrochemicals port near Surat and JNPT are not connected to WDFC. Pipavav, Mundhra(Adani ports) and Kandla are connected to the WDFC through feeder IR routes equipped for electric traction which allow double stacked container freight.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Latest progress on Ayodhya Railway station. They will open it by end of this year or January 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAafhZZZWVQ

Doubling works connecting Lucknow---Ayodhya----Varanasi and upgraded tracks for 130kmph so that VB can run on this pilgrim circuit are also moving. The section Lucknow to Ayodhya is the one where the kms of doubled tracks are the least. The hope is to complete doubling, demolishing wayside stations and re-building and improved track and safety projects to be completed by the next general election, which is going to be close but doable.
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Re: Indian Railways Thread (Dec 2015)

Post by vsunder »

Third Line works on the Chennai to Delhi trunk route. This is one of the projects I had listed above that deserve watching Chambal River third Bridge on the Agra Cantt to Jhansi section. There is progress but not as much as anticipated. This section is to be upgraded to 160kmph since Bhopal Shatabdi, VB and also Gatimaan all utilize this section and also many other premium trains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeYAz9enYho
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