Amid threat of COVID spread, operation theatre-like fresh air to be pumped into AC coaches

In a bid to reduce the risk of infection, the Railways' air-conditioned trains will now have operation theatre-like fresh air pumped into its coaches, replacing the circulated air which raises the chances of spread of infection, officials said. The experiment started with 15 pairs of air-conditioned trains being run by the Railways on the Rajdhani routes since May 12, will be replicated in all AC trains as part of the national transporter's preparations for post-COVID operations.

"The Roof Mounted AC Package Unit (RMPU) system of Indian Railways AC coaches replaces air more than 16-18 times per hour just like in OTs," officials said. Previously, these AC trains had air change six to eight times per hour and 80 per cent of the air that was pushed into coaches was recirculated air, while 20 per cent was fresh air.

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Officials said that on the advise of the health experts, the Railways' has modified its non-AC coaches as isolation coaches for treating mild coronavirus cases and said that they have also applied health ministry guidelines to modify the ac units onboard the special Rajdhani trains to ensure that the infection does not spread.

READ:  Railways executes 200 maintenance projects during COVID-19 lockdown period

Railways Executes 200 Maintenance Projects During COVID-19 Lockdown Period

Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the suspension of passenger services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Railways has executed more than 200 long-pending maintenance works including yard remodeling, repair and re-girdering of old bridges, doubling and electrification of rail lines and renewal of scissor crossovers. Pending for several years, these unfinished projects often confronted Railways as bottlenecks.

Passenger train services were suspended in late March as India entered into a stringent and total lockdown to arrest the spread of the deadly Coronavirus. During this three-month-long period, the Railways said it focused on several long-pending overdue maintenance works which required traffic block of long durations. They were planned during the lockdown period considering it ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipe out these maintenance arrears and take up the execution of work without affecting the train service.

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