Pune: For the first time in the Central Railway Division, a ‘Scott Transformer’ with high voltage capacity has been commissioned on the Solapur line, and similar management is being done at four places. Due to this, the capacity and speed of long-distance trains running on the Pune-Solapur railway line, as well as freight train,s will soon increase to a large extent. The railway administration has informed that the travel time of the ‘Vande Bharat Express’ on the Solapur-Pune-Mumbai route will soon decrease.
In 2018, trains running on the Daund, Goundgaon and Solapur routes of the Solapur Railway Division of the Railway were experiencing speed changes due to the lack of expected high voltage power supply. The speed of fast passenger trains as well as freight trains had to be reduced at certain places. Therefore, after crossing this stage according to the schedule to reach the desired destination, the exercise to reach the next station has been going on till now.
Also, many technical problems like power supply increasing and decreasing due to unintentional speeding of the train, incidents of high voltage supply interruption and other technical problems are frequently occurring and the speed of the Solapur-Pune-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express, which covers the distance in a short time, had to be slowed down.
Since these problems persisted on the Pune-Daund and Solapur-Wadi railway lines, the Solapur Railway Department commissioned the first automatic 'Scott Transformer' on this railway line. A transformer with a capacity of about 120 tons has been transferred to the electrical substation for Gaudgaon station in good condition. Due to this, the trains running on this route will get an uninterrupted and high-voltage power supply. Due to this, the department has been successful in eliminating the technical problems arising in the Vande Bharat Express and freight trains.
Benefits to Vande Bharat Express
The train running on the Solapur-Pune-Mumbai route takes 6.30 hours. The train takes 63 minutes to cover the 79-kilometre distance from Solapur to Kurduvadi. However, it completes the 101-kilometre distance from Kurduvadi to Daund in just 58 minutes. Due to this, the speed of the train from Solapur station is slow, and it has a problem with high power supply.
However, this high-pressure management will reduce the time by about 15 to 20 minutes. At the same time, it is estimated that this will benefit long-distance trains from Pune to the south, mainly on the routes of Karnataka, Bengaluru, Chennai, and will reduce the travel time to a great extent, the Railway Department also predicted.
This will also benefit
- A freight train of 80 coaches can be carried
- Continuity in long-distance trains
- Trains can be operated at a speed of 160 kilometres per hour
- The goal of transporting 3000 metric tons of freight can be achieved
“The speed of the trains was controlled due to the uninterrupted power supply of the high-pressure capacity at Goundgaon. Therefore, a 120-ton Scott transformer and four automatic transformers of 12.3 MVA capacity have been safely arranged across the railway tracks at this location,” said A. K. Vikram, Public Relations Officer, Solapur Division.
