The slow progress of the 2.7-km water pipeline from the Central Railway's filtration plant near Miraj station to the latter's marshalling yard is what is forcing the Railways to send curtailed water rakes.
The two water trains from Miraj to Latur -- on April 11 and 13 – had only 10 wagons each when they could have pulled in 100 wagons.
Put another way, the two trains, Latur, which could have got 54 lakh litres of water from the trains got only 10 lakh litres.
The slow progress of the 2.7-km water pipeline from the Central Railway's filtration plant near Miraj station to the latter's marshalling yard is what is forcing the Railways to send curtailed water rakes.
The state was supposed to build a pipeline from the filtration plant to line 6 of Miraj's marshalling yard, so that the rake could be filled with water at the yard itself. Now, the Railways are drawing water meant to replenish long-distance trains that halt at platform number 2 of Miraj.
dna, in its April 11 edition, had front-paged a report that the state started work on the new pipeline only in the first week of April, when the plan to have a water train to Latur was taken on March 22 -- a delay of almost a fortnight.
As per rake logistics, water, after being drawn from the intake well on the Krishna river, is piped into a railway-owned jack-well, and, from there, to the filtration plant near Miraj station.
The lack of a new pipeline means that the 5 lakh litres pumped into the rake has to be from the 18-20 lakh litres of water Miraj station uses for operational purposes like replenishing passenger trains and for railway colony needs.
"Thanks to the state's bungling, the Railways has to send a rake in multiple configurations, which means multiple locomotives, multiple driving crew and multiple time slots that affect the running of passenger trains on this heavily congested route," said an official.
According to sources, only about 700 metres of the 2.7- km line has been built and work on it might last for a few more days. State officials refused to comment.
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