Inadequate washing lines hit wagon care

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, April 16

The Railways is yet to address the issue of inadequate washing line space at the city railway station.

When Bathinda Tribune had highlighted the issue in these columns in the past, then DRM Dinesh Kumar had said the carriage wagon care centre would be extended to 26 coaches in the city. For this, the encroachments and old structure for the extension projects will be removed. Unfortunately, till date no action has been taken.

According to sources, there are two washing lines at the station parallel to each other with the capacity of 14 and 11 train coaches maintenance at a time. As a result, it consumes more time in cleaning trains having more than 14 coaches. Besides, if any train is arriving late at the station then it gets further delayed due to cleaning process taking more time.

Considering a heavy rush in the trains there is hardly except passenger trains which are having coaches 14 or less than that, rest of the trains including express and super fast are having coaches more than 14 and up to 28.

Besides, as the Bathinda is also an army cantonment area, defence personals’ trains also get delayed for several hours due to inadequate washing line space available at the city railway station.

This problem has also become a hurdle in getting new long route trains from here. Many trains, which halt at Delhi railway station, can be extended to Bathinda, but because of this issue the city railway station is not getting new trains. Moreover, the washing line at Sriganganagar railway station is already overburdened.

Station superintendent Ramswaroop Meena could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.