Central Railways vigorously starts prepping train

Mumbai: Staff members of all departments from the Central Railway (CR) were all hard at work to get Tejas ready for its run after it arrived in Mazegaon train yard at 2 pm on Saturday. The train will depart on its maiden journey from Mumbai to Goa on Monday.

Staff from the mechanical section was already walking through 19 coaches, of which four are back-up coaches that were brought in from Delhi after being manufactured in Kapurthala (Punjab) at the Rail Coach Factory there.

Vaibhav, a maintenance worker, said, “The train will be taken to Wadi Bunder near Sandhurst Road station. There is a proper pit line there, where it will be mounted and its undercarriage will be inspected in great detail.”

Mr Vaibhav added that Tejas would undergo a six-hour primary maintenance, before it takes off on Monday. “We are currently looking at all the chairs if they are reclining the way they should, the reading lights, the bio-toilets, if the TV screens are working fine and mostly importantly, the air-conditioning.”

The railways has also ordered replacements for eight windowpanes broken while the train took its journey from Delhi to Mumbai, but the maintenance staff members said they are under tremendous pressure to check all boxes. Kunal, another maintenance worker, said, “Since morning, officers have begun monitoring the train and we were asked to be ready when it entered the yard and begin work without any delay.”

Mr Kunal added that senior railway officials will be monitoring the primary maintenance that will be conducted on Saturday night or early Sunday morning.