Mangaluru : Southern Railway’s Palakkad Division recently commissioned a quick watering facility for train coaches at the Mangaluru Junction Railway Station (MAJN) thereby significantly enhancing en-route train watering system.

With the commissioning, coaches of a train rake could be filled within about 10 minutes as against 20 minutes taken earlier. The Hindu had on August 16 reported about the system in these columns.

There were frequent complaints of shortage of water in coaches of passing-through trains as they were given only a 10 minute halt at MAJN while the time required to fill water tanks of all coaches was 15-20 minutes. Hoses were fixed one by one to each coach with valves being opened thereafter. Water flowed to coaches from an overhead tank by gravity. With different levels of water pressure for every coach, there was no uniform filling of coaches.

The Railways had introduced the quick watering system developed by the Centre for Advanced Maintenance Technology of the Research and Design Standards Organisation to address the delayed watering issue from September 20. The system employs six-inch pipes instead of the traditional four-inch ones, high-powered motors, and a computerised system, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to efficiently manage the water supply, said a release.

The CAMTECH quick watering system offers several advantages over the conventional system. It could fill all the train coaches with water in just 8-10 minutes and simultaneously provide water to multiple trains without compromising water pressure or the scheduled time. It also ensures consistent water pressure and the automatic operation of all pumps.

The quick watering system marked a substantial enhancement in passenger services, guaranteeing a reliable and swift source of water for trains while minimising stoppage times at watering stations. Similar systems were previously deployed at Palakkad Junction and Shoranur Junction.

MAJN which has three platforms, is a prominent station on the west coast of India. It handles about 85 trains of different kinds — Rajdhani, Doronto, Garib Rath, Superfast, Mail and Express, Humsafar, AC Superfast — with different frequencies — daily, weekly, and bi-weekly. On average, about 40 trains get watered at MAJN.