No SPURTs of disaster, please

The Railways is trying to devise a methodology to test the ability of tracks to withstand stress and force, the Union railway minister said while presenting the Rail Budget. Speaking of â€˜Safety on long-welded rails,â€™ the minister said: â€œIndian Railways have a substantial length of long and continuous welded rails. With a view to ascertain actual forces in them, it is proposed to develop field methods to measure actual forces occurring in rails so that necessary remedial action may be taken before unsafe conditions develop.â€� In effect, it refers to a new method of testing tracks referred to as the Self Propelled Rail Ultrasonic Flaw Detection Train fixing machine (or SPURT machine). This is an online method of testing tracks after a certain gross metric tonnage (GMT) of traffic has passed over it. Indian Railways plans to adopt this method for field testing of tracks. The countryâ€™s only manufacturer of rails, Bhilai Steel Plant, says use of this method will vastly improve the Railwaysâ€™ maintenance system. It does not involve the testing of rails at manufacturing stage. â€œWe supplied around 7 lakh tonnes of rails to Indian Railways last year, which were 100% tested for force, impact and hardness by RITES. After procurement, most of these rails are welded at Railwaysâ€™ own welding units. The new method of monitoring the quality of tracks will be very useful in safety and maintenance,â€� Bharat Lal, general manager, Long Rail Complex, Bhilai Steel Plant, told ET. Rail tracks, irrespective of whether they are welded or short rails, are subjected to high stress due to the heavy load on them. As a result, a number of times cracks appear on the rails, especially on the welded portions. If any defect is detected, the track has to be replaced to ensure safe running of trains. The Railways thus needs to regularly keep monitoring the condition of the tracks, especially the long-welded panels. BSP has so far been manufacturing rails in lengths of 13 and 26 metres. Officials from Rail India Technical and Engineering Services (RITES) are permanently stationed in Bhilai to conduct stringent quality control checks at the plantâ€™s rail mill complex. Even if one rail fails the test, the entire batch of rails is rejected. After quality checks, most of the rails procured by the Railways are welded at their nine welding units located under different railway zones. Only a portion of the rails are welded at the Bhilai steel plant. However, in line with global trends, the Railways is gradually shifting to longer rails to improve safety and speed of trains. Recently, a Rs 400-crore long-rail complex, capable of manufacturing rails of up to 80 metres, was commissioned at Bhilai. These can then be welded into 240 and 260-metre tracks. The new unit takes Bhilaiâ€™s rail capacity to 8 lakh tonnes per annum, out of which long rail capacity will be around 5 lakh tonnes per year. An estimate of demand can be gauged from the fact that the Railways have decided to replace 5,000 km of tracks every year during 10th Plan.

No SPURTs of disaster, please

The Railways is trying to devise a methodology to test the ability of tracks to withstand stress and force, the Union railway minister said while presenting the Rail Budget.

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