The chairman of the Railway Board, V K Yadav, recently chaired a Review Meet of the zonal performance at the Northern Railway’s headquarter in New Delhi. The member of the Traffic Railway Board Girish Pillai, the general manager of the Northern Railway TP Singh, the principal heads-of-department of the Northern Railway, the divisional railway managers of the five Divisions of Northern Railway viz. Ambala, Delhi, Moradabad, Lucknow and Firozpur were also present on the occasion.
Appraising the overall safety performance of the zone during 2018-19, Yadav noted the 31 percent noteworthy reduction in the number of accidents vis-à -vis 2017-18 and expressed his satisfaction on the mission mode of the zone in 100 per cent elimination of unmanned level-crossing on the zone, which is a part of the ‘Mission Zero Accident’.
The chairman underscored the need for expeditious completion of infrastructure projects viz. new lines, doubling lines and so on to enhance capacity creation to meet the twin objectives of operation (punctuality) and safety. He noted that the Northern Railway has taken several steps to improve the punctuality of the passenger carrying trains during the year which include elimination of traction change in 12 trains, standardising and factoring in mega corridor block in the new time table to rationalise train running time. He apprised that live monitoring of the asset failures is being undertaken and additional manpower and resources are being deployed on dense traffic sections.
One of the significant measures to augment punctuality performance was the de-congestion of major terminals of Delhi, Lucknow and Allahabad area. A noteworthy raise in speed of trains on loop lines enabled saving 86 minutes, while the track strengthening and electrification works enabled the raising of sectional speed. He also noted that the PF berthing slots were rationalised to ensure better station punctuality.
Yadav also reviewed the ongoing action plans of the zone with regards to the rationalisation of rake links, terminal shifting to reduce station congestion and to ensure expeditious primary maintenance. The washing line OHE connectivity is on the anvil with other improvements viz. high-speed fuelling and watering.
The chairman further reviewed the various development plans proposed in the year ahead viz. the doubling works, flyovers (rail) to enable operational flexibility and by-passes/chord lines to avoid detention due to reversal. He also reviewed the various traffic facility up-gradation works viz. coaching terminal facility at Bijwasan and Varanasi yard remodeling plans. The capacity enhancement works through a target 41 km new line, and doubling spanning 137 km, are on the anvil for the year 2019-20.
Assigning a higher impetus to the modernised signaling, the zone has on its anvil projects for introduction of automatic block signaling on high density routes through an estimated Rs 287.66 crore in the year ahead. This would enable better punctuality performance, commented the chairman.
