ROURKELA: Chakradharpur Division of the South Eastern Railway (SER), which handles bulk iron ore dispatch from mining belts in Odisha and Jharkhand, has decided to equip all its rapid loading system (RLS) railway sidings with the advanced pre-weighment bin system (PWBS).
The fresh move envisages to substantially enhance availability and mobility of railway rakes cutting down rake detention time.
Till June 15, two each RLS railway sidings of Tata at Noamundi (Jharkhand) and Joda in Keonjhar (Odisha) have been equipped with PWBS.
The move came after Kolkata-based SER general manager PK Mishra and Chakradharpur Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Chhatrasal Singh closely analysed the reasons for unnecessary detention of rakes during a visit to one of the RLS sidings recently.
Senior divisional commercial manager Manish Pathak said Chakradharpur Division is the first to introduce this system in iron ore sector of Indian Railways.
In the earlier practice of weighing on motion weigh bridge (MWB), a train rake used to move at a speed of 10 km on the MWB and if there was overloading, the rake had to be returned for adjustment.
This used to inevitably detain the loaded and other rakes in the queue for 90-120 minutes. But the PWBS works on load cells hydraulically with computer command system, he added.
Pathak said a loading siding without PWBS if handles 10 rakes in a day, then it inevitably lose above 13 hours in rake detention.
But with the PWBS, two more rakes could be adjusted. The new initiative has improved rake availability with turnaround time in loading-release-loading cycle.
In near future, remaining RLS loading sidings would be equipped with the PWBS. The Indian Railways also plans to integrate PWBS-RLS sidings with Freight Operation and Information System (FOIS) under its Mission Raftaar, he added.
SER sources said in next phase, all six functional railway sidings of KMC would be equipped with PWBS-RLS facilities to improve rake movement.