CHENNAI: With the railways replacing the conventional ICF coaches of trains with Linke Hofman Busch (LHB) coaches, the Southern Railway has decided to set up dedicated shed for periodical overhauling (POH) of LHB coaches at the Perambur carriage workshop in Chennai.Work on setting up the workshop is expected to begin in one month. Currently, Southern Railway maintains about 6,200 coaches, including 1,350 LHB coaches. “LHB coaches should undergo overhauling every 24 months for safe journey of trains. Currently, LHB coaches have to be sent to other zones for POH. The Perambur carriage workshop will be first the LHB workshop for the zone,” said a senior official.
The official added that another workshop has been proposed at Rock Railway Workshop in Tiruchi at the cost of Rs 53 crore. “The proposal is pending with the Railway Board,” said the officer.In February 2016, LHB coaches were introduced in Southern Railway aiming to improve the services in terms of safety of passengers, punctuality and travel comfort. Besides, having lesser weight compared to ICF coaches, the maintenance cost of LHB coaches is also less. However, a few trains operated with LHB coaches derailed in northern parts of India allegedly due to non-maintenance. “The existing infrastructure at ICF is not suitable as POH of LHB coaches requires completely different facilities,” said the official.
Construction of LHB workshop involves building a covered shed for outgoing bay and air brake section, service building, extension of surface transit sideways, heavy duty and medium duty epoxy flooring, a separate building for store room, transit shed and light tubular covered shed. In addition to this, rail connectivity to transit to saw mill, replacement of existing flooring, provision of first aid post, locker room, sand blast shed and approach road are required, said an official note of Southern Railway.
There are 42 mechanical workshops across the 16 zonal railways in the country. Each workshop has to prepare its periodical overhaul (POH) programme two years in advance, taking into account the number of coaches, wagons and locomotives that would fall due for POH.