Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Issues Facing Railroad Track Maintenance

By Harriet Porter


Maintenance involves the daily care of the railroad to ensure smooth running of railway transport systems. This involves regular checks on the tracks, power supply and the signal lights. Some minor repairs also fall under railroad track maintenance. This is important in ensuring reliability and the safety of railway use. Larger infrastructure work would fall under railroad engineering, including replacement of the rails.

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.

The engineering staff should also be courteous enough to give the locals to be affected by the repair project at least a 10 day notice prior implementation. It may also be a good idea to do the same for the relevant officials from the local authority avoid last minute troubles and complains. This also puts the locals in a good position to prepare for the noise from the activity.

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.

It is also difficult to plan and agree on the timings of repairs as railways are a 24 hours a day, seven days a week service with thousands of miles of track, bridges and level crossings. This infrastructure has to be worked on all year through to ensure safety and a sense of reliability for 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.




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