Quick watering system to ensure adequate water supply in trains

Come March 2019 and the passengers of mail or express trains won't complain of water shortage in the coaches, as the Indian Railways is all set to use "quick watering system" to fill water, an official said on Thursday.

The Railway Board Member - Rolling Stock, Rajesh Agarwal, said the Indian Railways used to receive a lot of complaints related to water shortage in the train coaches.

"But with the use of quick watering system, a 24-coach train can be filled up within five minutes and multiple trains can be watered simultaneously," he said.

Highlighting the functionality of the new system, Agarwal said that earlier the water in the train coaches at railway stations were filled with the help of four-inch pipes.

"But those four inch pipes would now be replaced with six inch pipes with high power motors and the water would be supplied to the train coaches through a computerised system called SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)," he said.

He said that the quick watering system uses a powerful motor and a centralised monitoring system with flow meters which can also check exactly how much water is being filled into the tanks thereby reducing wastage.

Agarwal said that the Railway Ministry has planned to install pressure pumps of 40 horsepower to increase water pressure, so that trains can refill water in five minutes.

He said that by March 2019, this system would be installed at over 142 stations which have the water filling stations in trains. Recently the rail board sanctioned Rs 300 crore for the project.

He said that the Ministry has planned to install pumps of 40 horsepower to increase the water pressure.

According to Railway Ministry officials, the water in the long-distance trains are filled at every 200 km. But as the old pipeline did not provide adequate pressure, it took around 20-25 minutes to fill 1,800 liters of water in a coach, resulting in inadequate filling of water in the train coaches.

The official said at present, railway staff fix hose pipes from their water line to the inlet of coaches and fill tanks. The speed of a regular pumping system is comparatively slow, resulting in lesser water being filled in the coaches.

The official noted that the quick watering system was developed by the Research and Design Standrads Organisation (RDSO)'s CAMTECH, Gwalior unit. Through an open tender, the contract will be given to the local contractors, the Ministry said.

--IANS

aks/nir