To save water & time, Konkan Railway unveils automatic coach washing plant

Panaji: The

Konkan Railway’s

indigenously developed automatic coach washing plant at the Margao railway station has many advantages, but perhaps the most important is its capacity to save huge amounts of water.

The multistage external cleaning system for coaches and trains uses high pressure water jets, horizontal and vertical rotating nylon and cotton combination brushes and is able to clean the exterior of a rake of 24 coaches in just about 15-20 minutes while being placed on the pit line for primary or secondary maintenance.

It also treats the discharged water in an effluent treatment plant. “This helps us release water of a quality that is almost potable or used for gardening purposes,” KRCL’s chief mechanical engineer Deepak Tripathi told reporters on Tuesday.

The first such automatic coach-washing plant was supplied to the Kolkata Metro, he said, and added that it was a robust alternative to expensive washing plant facilities presently being used in the country. Each wash is touted to save at least one lakh litres of water.

“If I use manpower, the cleaning process takes four to five hours as opposed to the plant that can clean a train in 15 minutes. If I save five hours for a train that provides a national service, it is not only saving resources but also providing passengers with more trains” Tripathi explained.

The plant comprises a prewash unit that wets the coach’s walls and roof through low velocity jets to help loosen the dust and dirt. In the second stage, a pressurised soap solution is sprayed and then brushed onto the exterior with four vertical brushes that are powered by gear-motors.

This is followed by under-gear cleaning, where pressurised jets of water and disinfectant are directed towards the toilet discharge areas to clean beneath the toilets which are otherwise not accessible. These jets also clean the under-gear portion of the trolleys and the disinfectant spray prevents breeding of cockroaches.

A control room is provided with an underground tank of 20,000 litres and an overhead plastic tank of 5,000 litres for soap solution.