Saturday, 28 April 2018
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Sunday, 22 April 2018
Monday, 16 April 2018
Railways seeks Innovative Ideas from public on Coach Design
Railways seeks Innovative Ideas from public on Coach Design
The Indian Railways has sought from the public innovative ideas to increase passenger-carrying capacity of coaches, ensure easy accessibility to trains from low-level platforms and develop new digital capabilities at stations.
Luxury coaches designed by Coach Rehabilitation Workshop Bhopal
New Delhi: The Indian Railways has sought from the public innovative ideas to increase passenger-carrying capacity of coaches, ensure easy accessibility to trains from low-level platforms and develop new digital capabilities at stations. It has announced cash rewards for best innovative ideas on various aspects, including new design of wagons for efficient loading and transportation of new commodities.
A campaign has been launched by the railways seeking innovative ideas from all citizens/sections of the country to improve working of the public transporter, said a senior Railway Ministry official.
Almost every citizen of the country has personal experience with the railways, thus it is hoped that they will participate in this campaign with full zeal and zest.
In order to encourage people’s participation in the contest, the railways has offered total six prizes worth Rs 12 lakh. The railways has categorised five challenges that are aimed at promoting innovation in the country by focusing on specific problems being faced by the public transporter.
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu had announced in his budget that a campaign would be launched in this regard.
The official said that today’s generation is very innovative and technology savvy and the coming time will be completely digital. Thus, the railways can benefit a lot if innovative ideas are sought from all citizens and the chosen ones are implemented.
The campaign will be a kind of brainstorming for all.
According to the railways, participation procedure, terms and conditions, eligibility, guidelines are available at website — http://innovate.mygov.in/. Last date for submitting online application is December 20.
Sunday, 15 April 2018
Railways back to the Drawing Board on many key Modernisation Plans after Modi rider
Railways back to the Drawing Board on many key Modernisation Plans after Modi rider
NEW DELHI: Indian Railways is evaluating several of its modernisation and capacity addition plans announced in the past few months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the national transporter to pick only those projects that made financial sense and used mostly the existing resources.
During a recent review meeting with the officials of Rail Board, the top decisionmaking body of Indian Railways, the PM asked officials to evaluate the 100% signalling upgradation, electrification, expansion of WiFi, installing escalators among other plans before going ahead with them. According to top officials, Modi is learnt to have said that any project that railways wanted to go ahead with should be financially viable and should only be implemented using the available resources.
In terms of having a 100% new signalling system called the European Train Control System 2, railways was told that such systems should only be installed after extensive trials while keeping the cost in mind. The PM also said that railways should think about using the indigenous technology, if available.
Indian Railways had recently announced moving to the advanced European system, which would allow it to increase the train running capacity on the existing tracks.
The ministry official said that as per the directions of the PM, the evaluation is being carried out. Any new technology will be introduced only if it is proven in Indian conditions and is cost efficient, a view that is shared by rail minister Piyush Goyal, the official said.
On the rail ministry’s plan of 100% electrification of the network, the ministry was told that such a target should be examined with regards to the global practice where the mix of diesel and electric traction is a preferred mode.
“Diesel traction will remain relevant for many areas and premature condemnation of diesel engines must not be done and the legal and financial liability should properly be examined in consultation with the law and finance departments,” the ministry was told.
“We are moving as per budget targets for electrification which for the current year is more than 6,000 km. By 100% electrification, we meant the main lines where the traffic is high and electric traction is more viable,” he said.
Railways had earlier set the target to electrify around 38,000 km of its remaining rail network by 2022. This would have made the entire 66,000 km of rail network fully electrified. Railways had earlier claimed that by phasing out polluting diesel engines, it wold save at least Rs 10,000 crore a year in fuel costs.
Railways’ safety record in 2017-2018 best in 57 years, shows official data!
Railways’ safety record in 2017-2018 best in 57 years, shows official data!
In fact, the previous best track renewal was 4,175 km in 2004-2005, when the transporter was given a rehabilitation plan with a fund of Rs 17,000 crore.
NEW DELHI: The railways has maintained the best safety record in 2017-2018 fiscal in over five decades, according to official figures. As of March 30, 73 accidents were reported across the railway network, compared to 104 in the previous fiscal, the lowest in 57 years.
“The main reason behind the improvement is track renewal, the railways carried out renewal of 4,405 km of old rails in 2017-2018. This is the highest ever progress of rail renewal and exceeds the target of 4,400 km kept for the year,” a senior official of the ministry said.
In fact, the previous best track renewal was 4,175 km in 2004-2005, when the transporter was given a rehabilitation plan with a fund of Rs 17,000 crore.
This fiscal has also recorded the longest ever distance travelled by trains. In 1960-61, trains collectively travelled just 388.1 million train km as compared to 1170.7 million train km in 2017-2018.
Train kilometer is the unit of measure of distance which corresponds to the movement of a train over one kilometer.
Significantly, despite trains having travelled an additional 74 million train km in 2017-2018 as compared to the last five years, accidents have remained at an all time low.
As far as accidents are concerned, while in 1960-61, the number was 2131, it came down to 840 in 1970-71, in 1980-81 it stood at 1,013, in 1990-91 it recorded 532 accidents, in 2010-11 there were 141 such cases, as per the figures.
The casualty figures also have gone down. In 2016-17, 607 people were injured or killed in train accidents, in 2017-2018, the number stood at 254.
While derailments have come down from 78 in 2016-2017 to 54 in 2017-2018, accidents at level crossings stood at 13 in 2017-2018 as compared to 30 the previous year.
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