Following inspection, it will now be sent for repairs
Mumbai : The damaged coach of the train that derailed last Tuesday was taken for repair on Saturday night after a special night block for six hours was undertaken. The eight-motor coach was not taken to the car shed after it was removed on Wednesday morning since the restoration work itself stretched for over 22 hours and affected train services the next day.
Lifting the coach using a crane, putting it on a trolley and taking it to the yard was the last leg of the restoration process, which was completed on Saturday. The coach was taken to a siding in Bandra during a special block, which was undertaken at the cost of a regular maintenance block that was to be carried out at Bandra terminus and yard.
The coach will now be taken to the car shed in Mumbai Central, where it will be inspected by Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) Sushil Chandra. Following the inspection, it will be sent for repairs to the Mahalaxmi work shop. The other damaged coaches are expected to be rolled back into service within a week.
The restoration work that could be completed on Tuesday was stretched over 22 hours as railway officials were speculating about the method to be adopted for the simplest way to salvage the eight-motor coach that was stuck on the tracks.
Railway men worked for hours on re-railing the coach. However, then, at the eleventh hour, it was decided to lift the coach using a 140-tonne crane. Once again, the Over Head Equipment (OHE) was removed on both the fast lines to facilitate the swift movement of the crane and the coach was finally removed at 8:30 am on Wednesday.
Train operations were once again affected during the morning peak hours as the fast track was blocked and were only thrown open at 9:30 am. Even when traffic resumed, there were speed restrictions imposed which further affected the services. An official from Western Railway said, “We were initially trying to change the sleepers by lifting he coach using jacks. But after that did not work out, we decided to remove the coach using a crane.”
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