Though the Chairman, Railway Board, himself was at DMW, rest of the officials were at Station and checking and inspecting. There were around 10 officials including DRM, UMB division were present at the station. Chairman'e AC coach was parked at PF 1 A and a red carpet was laid from coach to the entrance to the station. I hooked up one of the officials and got details from him, regarding their visit and whole scenario. I was told that the Chairman was here to give green signal to start of new duties and functions of DMW. He also said that the section shall be made token less and that is why the levers and other old equipments are being removed from LCs and other. He also said that one of the other decisions to electrify this section that in Punjab there are maximum rail roko protests etc, so IR is taking...
more... such routes into consideration , which can serve as detour. This is so, because all the trains coming till RPJ are hauled by electric locos and there'll be no time to change the loco to move on this current diesel route via PTA-DUI-LDH, and moreover in a short span so many diesel locos are difficult to arrange. And the PTA-DUI-LDH section is small and they can't wast time to change to loco again and again. so keeping in that view this whole section shall be electrified along with being a feeder route for DFC. He said Dhablaan (DBN) shall be converted into Junction and preparations are ON for Dhablaan-Jakhal-Hissar route, as from Patiala its difficult to lay a new line towards jakhal due to high density population. Dhablaan is just 12 kms from PTA and is 5 kms from PTE (Patiala Cantt) , Dhablaan is also be made a main loading point for military, and military has laid their own track and IR just has to join the two sections and the Patiala-Jakhal link shall be UP.
He said if there is a traffic block between RPJ and Sirhind, all trains shall be re-routed on RBR till Dhuri and then towards LDH etc. He also said that Jakhal-DUI-LDH route is given more importance as it shall from now onwards handle maximum traffic going from Delhi towards LDH etc. Means , they'll divert or the new train on this route shall be plying now on JKL-DUI-LDH. RPJ-DUI-LDH via PTA shall be used as detour in case of traffic block due to rail protest or accident.
He said it is mandatory to pass 7 trains of coal from RBR daily, but now a days the freight traffic is going to BTI via main lines from some branch line near LDH. cuz of maintenance work going on near Dhablaan and a traffic is blocked for 3-4 hrs daily and they can't hold coal trains for that long. And that is why those red banner flags come up on this section. PTA main PF 1's length is going to be increased and the work for that is going to start in few days. The height of the FOB won't be increased, the Panto shall lower itself accordingly,a s the FOB is not that low. He also said that for shatabdi, the PTA track has to be cleared to handle a speed or MPS 120 as compared to current speed of 90-100. He also said that technically the PTA route can handle the speed of 120 kmph, but the officials have to give clearance on records. (Babu giri, or general official formalities in Indian govt. depts or RED TAPISM) or what you can call it is holding up the issue. Stange is that the PTA track is fit for 25tn axle load, but can't handle speed increase from 90-100 to 120. Wow..! . Any how he too agreed that there are many formalities in IR due to which lot of projects or issues gets delayed. He said they where very much sure that Rajpura-Patiala-Dhuri-Lehra Mohabat route shall be given importance first, but due to political intervention , the Jakhal-DUI-LDh section is done at first. Strange again..!! All the track ballast unloaded around the station area, shall be used for existing tracks cuz as per survey the ballast packing is less at present, due to which the vibration gets more.
