South Central Railway (SCR), as part of environment friendly measures and to enhance the cleanliness of coach exteriors, commissioned an automatic coach washing plant at the coaching depot in Hyderabad on Friday.
A new pit line at the busy Kazipet yard was also inaugurated by General Manager Gajanan Mallya virtually from Rail Nilayam in the presence of top officials.
Similar automatic coach washing plants have already been commissioned at Secunderabad, Kacheguda and Kakinada.
The new one at the Hyderabad coaching depot has been set up at a cost of ₹1.78 crore. It is a multi-stage external cleaning system that uses vertical rotating brushes and pressurised water and soap solution jets to clean coach exteriors and an entire train of 24 coaches in about 8-10 minutes.
The manpower requirement also scales down to just one person per shift and fresh water consumption for washing gets reduced by around 85% compared to the normal manual washing method.
The pit lines at important stations facilitate maintenance of passenger coaches and attend minor requirements, if any, a release said.
