Thursday, August 28, 2014

Challenges In Railroad Track Maintenance

By Harriet Porter


Maintenance in this case can be described as the daily upkeep of a railway to ensure its success in meeting the transport needs of the people. This includes monitoring and repair of railway infrastructure such as the power supply, lights and the tracks. This is important so as to curb the incidence of accidents and other unfortunate events. Railroad track maintenance is important in ensuring the transportation systems run without interruptions.

Railway works can be quite noisy and disruptive to surrounding areas especially if they are residential. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that a range of measures are put in place to minimize this. Some of these means are general such as sensitizing employees and contractors to be considerate towards the locals near the railway; having generators and lighting far from houses and where applicable, using licensed tools.

As a result, it may be important to notify the residents around a potential working site at least 10 days before work begins. It may also be necessary to notify local authorities about such planned works and projects.

The notifications can be disseminated by use of letters. These can be sent to residents informing them of a maintenance drill prior the agreed date. The media is also a useful tool for spreading these news. The aim of these is to inform the addressee of when and where maintenance drills will take place and when they are expected to end. Occasionally, it may be advisable to send such letters to local government officials as well.

Although this may seem ideal, it may not always be possible because maintenance is an everyday activity. Therefore it may deem impractical to inform everyone that will be affected by the maintenance activity, especially when in an emergency case scenario. As such, it is also up to the locals near railway roads to be prepared for such occurrences.

To worsen the situation, these works are mostly done at night or over the weekends. These are times when the residents are mostly at home. This makes living around such places problematic. Furthermore, most countries have made it a law that repairs be made when the railroad is closed. This leads to stagnated transport services over the more depended upon railway.

Trains function around the clock. It is therefore difficult to plan on maintenance schedules. Especially when there are countless miles of track, crossings and bridges. The railway facility has to be well maintained throughout the year to make sure that travelling needs are not compromised and to ensure the safety of the passengers.

These maintenance and engineering projects also have to be planned months ahead between the train and freight operating firms. Such projects are usually a smaller part of a bigger and more complex work programme. Small alterations could affect all the other parts.There is also a huge work load on the few available maintenance and engineering staff. It is therefore difficult to have work done smoothly and quickly. The same staff tend to have a hard time covering large track distances at different consecutive shifts. To curb the situation, more labor is recommended.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment