Indian Railways To Introduce State-Of-The-Art Automatic Coach Washing Plant; To Be Faster, More Water Efficient

The Indian Railways plans to introduce ‘Automatic Coach Washing Plant’ a modern state-of-the-art facility later this year, the New Indian Express reports.

The plant will clean the outer surface of the railway compartments, and will be introduced in washing depots which have a capacity of over 300 coaches across the country.

The first plant will be installed in the Coach Maintenance Depot in Durg, Chhattisgarh at an estimated cost of around Rs 2.2 crore. The Delhi-headquartered Central Organisation for Modernisation of Workshop (COFMOW) will manufacture this washing facility.

Currently, coaches are manually cleaned. The process is time-consuming and labour intensive since it is had to reach out to complete surface area of the coach. Further, the process consumes a high amount of water with each coach estimated consuming about 1,500 litres of water.

However, the new process will use just 250 litres of water and will also enable recycling.

Senior divisional commercial manager of Raipur division Tanmay Mukhopadhyay said, "The railways is in the process of adopting innovative ideas in recent years. Our ministry focuses on a global perspective when it comes to maintenance, performances and services. The coach washing plant is owing to endeavour of the Railway Board to execute such ideas promptly. Durg in Chhattisgarh state will have such automated service by mid-2019.”

The senior divisional mechanical engineer of the SE Central Railways Zone, S K Senapati adds that an entire 24-coach train will be cleaned in about 8 minutes.

The system uses a high-pressure water jet, horizontal and vertical rotating cotton and nylon brushes in a multi-stage cleaning mechanism. Further, it uses minimal electrical energy, workforce and maintenance and provides a better quality of results compared to the conventional manual system.