Mangalore Junction Railway Station to Get Electric Pumps to Fill Water in Coaches: Great Step

Mangalore Junction which has three platforms, is a prominent station on the west coast of India. The station handles about 85 trains of different kinds — Rajdhani, Doronto, Garib Rath, Superfast, Mail and Express, Humsafar, AC Superfast — with different frequencies — daily, weekly, bi-weekly. On an average, about 40 trains get watered at Mangalore Junction. Traditional hose valves would be replaced by steel ball valves, reducing water wastage. The new system thus reduces water wastage, and promotes better water management. The time taken for filling water in a train, gets reduced to 5-10 minutes from 15-20 minutes at present. This could be utilised to speed up the trains.

Under the existing system, when a 20-coach train arrives in MAJN for watering, hoses are fixed one by one to each coach with valves being opened thereafter. Water flows into the coaches from an overhead tank by gravity. Installation of an electronically controlled pump on every platform would help in quick filling of water. The pump is pre-programmed and has the ability to assess the requirement of each train passing through the station.

For example, a train leaving Madgaon late in the night may not need much water at Mangalore Junction compared to a train leaving that station early in the morning. Officials would analyse the requirement of each train and programme the equipment accordingly. When the valves of the hoses are opened to fill coach tanks, water would flow with uniform pressure to every tank, thereby ensuring uniform filling of tanks.