Expansion plans at Indian Railways’ only PPP-model wagon repair workshop in Vadlapudi

Spread successful astir 203 acres successful Vadlapudi, the Indian Railways’ lone PPP-based wagon repair store is readying to grow and commencement operation of much workshops astatine the remaining portion of the land. (Dheeraj Mishra)

“It is railways’ archetypal task wherever the PPP exemplary has been implemented successful wagon store repair. Currently we bash the periodic overhaul of implicit 200 wagons successful a month. Our program is to repair astatine slightest 1,000 wagons per month. For this the remainder of the country volition beryllium developed soon. As the railways’ people is to summation freight movement, this store becomes much important due to the fact that of its proximity to the ports,” said SK Senapati, the Chief Project Manager of BCL. Explaining the unsocial diagnostic of the workshop, helium said, “One of the important things astir this store is that it has been constructed successful a precise tiny area, arsenic compared to the others. Because of the Uni-flow repairing strategy of the wagon, the dismantling and assembling of the wagons are done successful an orderly, step-wise manner. We bash not request to store the wagon successful the store and past bash the repairing. Shunting oregon wagon driving is being done by Rail-cum-Road Vehicles. We besides person an Automatic Stores Retrieval System which automatically stores and retrieves inventory successful a warehouse.”

JV Apparao, lawman main task manager of the Vadlapudi, said that successful each six years, the wagons get astatine the store for the periodic overhaul. “In the uniflow system, assemblage repair, bogie repair, instrumentality repairing, coating and investigating is done successful 1 travel and the merchandise is the repaired wagon. We repair wagons of the East Coast Railways. Currently we person the capableness of repairing astir 2,400 wagons per twelvemonth and process it underway for its expansion. There is vacant onshore successful the north-east broadside wherever we person planned for expansion,” said Apparao astatine the workshop.

Sudhakar, a elder conception technologist astatine the covered workshop, which is 750 m agelong and 200 m wide, said that it takes astir 4-5 days to dismantle a wagon and past repair it. “It involves a fig of works specified arsenic ultrasonic investigating of axles, investigating of brake cylinders, cutting of the assemblage etc. While a wagon has a beingness of astir 35 years, it needs repairing from clip to time. The caller wagon is repaired successful six years and the repaired wagon comes backmost for repairs astatine the store successful 4.5 years. Around 9-10 wagons are being repaired everyday,” said the engineer. The Vadlapudi wagon repair workshop, which is 1 of the 18 specified workshops of Indian Railways, was sanctioned connected April 25, 2017 and its operation was completed connected November 30, 2020. It was constructed by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) astatine the outgo of Rs 381 crore. After outsourcing the store to BCL, the archetypal wagon crook retired from the store was connected October 31, 2021. According to the BCL, it has completed Periodic Overhauling (POH) of 2,193 wagons by December 2024 for the existent fiscal twelvemonth 2024-25. In 2023-23, it repaired a full of 2,866 wagons, 2,005 wagons successful 2022-23 and 309 wagons successful 2021-22.

“There are a full of 18 workshops successful Indian Railways which are engaged successful the Periodic Overhaul (POH)/repair of wagons. During the twelvemonth 2024-25, these workshops person been entrusted to undertake repair/POH of astir 69,000 wagons,” said a elder authoritative of Ministry of Railways. Indian Railways presently has implicit 3 lakh freight wagons crossed the country, which transportation much than 1.4 cardinal tonnes of freight postulation each twelvemonth implicit a web of 68,000 km.

About the workshop

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