The suburban system of Mumbai Division, Central Railway is the lifeline for Mumbaikars. However, the tracks in the suburban area are always covered with plastic waste and other garbage, which creates an unpleasant experience for the suburban commuters. This garbage is thrown by the people living adjacent to the railway tracks as well as by the travelling people.
Picking garbage manually from tracks an uphill task
Manually picking up the plastic waste and garbage from the tracks is not very effective due to huge quantity of such garbage and also due to high frequency of suburban trains. In order to overcome the above problem, Mumbai Division of Central Railway has devised a high-powered vacuum cleaner (vacuum assisted track cleaner), which is mounted on a flat wagon and run by a loco. This machine, including the compressor, is indigenously made from the scrap material by Diesel Loco Shed, Kalyan. The radiator blower of another loco is used and the disposal waste collector is fitted at the entry of fan.
Machine found to be very effective, more to be introduced
The above vacuum cleaner/vacuum track cleaner is found to be very effective. Normally, this machine cleans 1½ to 2 Kms of track in two hours block, which otherwise requires lot of manpower and time, if done manually. The cleaning can be done in both directions and during movement of trains also. This machine is deployed during night period, as most of the track maintenance works of suburban section are being carried out during night.
This machine is working for more than one week and is found to be very effective. Mumbai Division plans to introduce more such vacuum assisted track cleaners in near future. It is expected that the journey of Mumbaikars will become more pleasant in coming days due to clean and plastic-free tracks.
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