MEMU upkeep throws rail schedule out of gear

Kollam: Rail commuters in southern Kerala have been hit by irregularities in services as Mainline Electric Multiple Units (MEMU) from Kollam have been unavailable over the last one month. The Railways shifted the MEMU rakes for annual overhauling while a MEMU shed is being reduced to rust at the Kollam railway yard.

The MEMU rakes have been taken to Palakkad and Chennai for annual maintenance and ordinary rakes have been employed instead.

“Employing ordinary rakes instead of MEMU rakes has many disadvantages, including loss of time. Starting from Kollam itself takes more than an hour as an ordinary rake takes a long time to shunt the engine while MEMU is bi-directional. The pick-up is also low and it leads to further delays in each station, affecting punctuality badly,” said a railway official.

This has also added to the overall delay in train timings in the state over the past month.

The Kollam-Nagarcoil MEMU rake alone is being operated from Kollam currently. The Rs 41-crore MEMU shed at Kollam, intended to avoid this shifting of rakes to other maintenance sheds, is not in ‘full complement’, the authorities say, because of a lack of equipment and staff.

The Railways were expected to save about Rs 6 lakhs per month with the inauguration of the Kollam shed. Around 17 employees were recruited for the maintenance of rakes at Kollam, but the shed lacked facilities to carry out maintenance work at night.

The shed was inaugurated in Kollam in December 2013. Kollam-Kottayam-Ernakulam and Kollam-Alappuzha-Ernakulam are the other two MEMU services currently operating from Kollam.