Source – https://www.financialexpress.com/business/railways-indian-railways-automatic-coach-washing-plants-a-fresh-start-to-every-journey-3226031/
Publisher – Financial Express
Indian Railways is continuously working to provide world class facilities to its commuters through one of the best railways networks in the world. It has taken various initiatives to provide a clean environment and smooth travel experience to the passengers. Of these, one such is the setting up of Automatic Coach Washing Plants (ACWP) at various places.
What is Automatic Coach Washing Plants?
As the name suggests, the ACWP provides clean and hygienic travel experience to its valued passengers. It is a multistage external cleaning system for coaches in rakes, using detergent solution, high pressure water jet and vertical rotating brushes. In addition, it has an Effluent Treatment system and water softening plants for use of soft water for external washing. The cost of the plant is amounting to Rs 1.9 crore (approx).
Automatic Coach Washing Plant at Howrah Car Shed:-
Recently, Eastern Railway’s Howrah Division has installed one such ACWP at EMU Car-Shed to provide quality cleaning for the EMU trains which cater to lakhs of commuters everyday. Last year, it installed ACWP at Tikiapara Coaching Depot.
How Automatic Coach Washing Plant works:-
The Automatic Coach Washing Plant is sensor based and can wash a full train of 24 coaches within 7-8 minutes. The washing procedure is totally automatic and can be operated practically without any manpower. This is a highly cost effective method using minimum water for washing the exterior of train coaches.
At Howrah’s EMU Car-shed, the ACWP will take less than eight minutes to wash an entire take of 12 coaches. Thus, on an average, per day, 13 EMU rakes are washed through this ACWP at Howrah EMU Carshed. The washing system will use only 20% of the fresh water for each train while the remaining 80% of the water which will be used would be recycled water.
‘No Damage to exterior colour of rakes’
The controlled application of detergent leads to consistent cleaning causes no damage to exterior colour and optimum use of materials, and thus ensuring improved quality of exterior washing without damage to the paint or compromising on the aesthetic look of coaches.
