Konkan Railway an organisation that has so many laurels to count has been one of the best organisation in the country to boast for many unique achievement In the field of engineering, That this face book page is too small to carry it all. But then this small video I took a few days back is the negative side of all that they have achieved. The brain child of one of the great engineers in Konkan railway. These pictures show what some one dreamt as a project worth achieving. A suspended railway project which would have small carriages that would hang under a track supported on either side of a concrete structure above the level of land. The idea was good it was a practical solution to making a railway track instead of the conventional one. I dont know whos brain child was that but chairman Konkan railway really supported that. The project was viable and idea worth trying. So under the guidance of Chairman the project was started off , structure raised the undercarriage and the electric traction motors designed and manufactured. Erection took place and project was underway. Then the problem started closing in. The project was getting into shape and getting nearing the completion. This was a project under trial and thats where big bosses made a folly. They thought it will work like a regular train which they were good at making. Any where else they would first make a model study on scale model and make sure the scale working model would perform here they went on to make the actual model as seen in pictures above. On top of that before they tried it out for performance they decided to allow the Railway minister Lalu Yadav to inaugurate this prestigious project , even before they gave a good trial run of the under slung carriage. When you do this type of project we generally give good trial to the carriage. In front of the great minister the trial was carried out that was the biggest mistake. And if at all it was done there should have been some check on speeds you can achieve. Instead the guy who were running this carriage perhaps first time did not have control was showing off , result the carriage swung due to centrifugal forces and banged on the pillar at the turning , the carriage came down on land with a big thud and killed few who were taking ride. The minister was not inside ,lucky for some. Some guys lost their lives unfortunately. It was the lowest point of Konkan Railways achievements. Believe me it has been always my best appreciated organisation in engineering field. I was one of the few who took a ride on the inaugural train journey from Mumbai to Goa. I still say that the attempt they made in conceptualising this design was great. Where they made a folly , however ,was the approach. There was no model study carried out, instead they spent six crores on actual full size carriage. They involved IIT to design a simple under slung carriage but did not give enough thought to design the carriage and its stability system. I think not enough thought was given to design the carriage and its rail track system. The Konkan railway engineers did not give enough time on analysing the forces they would act on the carriage. Thats acceptable , even failure in the first try acceptable. What is not acceptable is after going this far after the failure on that D day no effort was done to see how the mistakes in the system could be corrected. Now to see this strong structure being demolished, its a very sad feeling , a feeling of loosing a test match. A feeling of heart ache to people who gave so much to the development in thus country. Could we not try to eliminate the few follies that existed in the design. In fact some features were ignored they could have been corrected. After spending Six crores why did we have to give up. Why was a chance not given to others who could have completed the project. In our country we have money with organisation who do not have people to complete projects. Konkan Railway has been our torch burner always. Like Border Road organisation they have excellent record of achievements. I have been always their fan and supporter but this project has never been handled well and after the Chairman left it had no direction giver , its been just running on the tracks laid by the great man. Sad to see a great idea being demolished like this. The end was so near but still so far.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 02:56:37 +0000
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