RailSudharak: Addressing loopholes of Indian Railways in addition to building revenue means for department

1.???? Executive Summary

RailSudharak is an approach to identify loopholes in Indian Railways and bring up solutions to such loopholes which can help Indian Railways in building it best in the world. There are certain loopholes identified which if solved it can help Indian Railways in multiple ways like diverting budget from maintenance to innovation and renovation. Some of these loopholes are cleaning cost of railway stations, railway tracks, etc; damage to railways image, financial and life loss in train crashing animals and humans. Even many attempts are made against Railways to damage the railways physiologically and financially. These are certain issues which occupies a big proportion of overall rail budget. The mentioned train accidents can convert to a major accident like derailment which can cause loss of 100s of citizens and even a loss of 100s of crore at a time. To tackle this train accidents railways is taking major steps be walling the railway routes by concrete walls or by bounding the area by metal or fibre structures. However, this approach cannot be a successful unless railways provide a proper alternative way for the locals so, in this paper multiple options are discussed. Additionally, concept of developing existing railway lines with super highspeed transportation and a concept is being introduced for railways for additional revenue generation apart from the current structure.

2.???? ?Introduction

Recently, railways published a report and as per the report Indian Railways spends more than ?12,000 crores on cleaning and a big portion of this amount is spent on cleaning the litters railway tracks and basically this litters are thrown from the open window coaches/ non-AC coaches. Every year thousands of animals and humans die on crossing the railway lines and as per reports around 32,000 animals were killed between 2016 and 2018 and the specific data of human death is not available. From these deaths of animals, 45 elephants were killed and more than 150 wild animals were killed between 2019 and 2021. When a train crashes to a huge animal due to the speed of train and the weight of animals, the train can lead to derailment which can cause 1000s of deaths. Apart from the natural causes, many attempts are made to damage the train; these attempts include stone pelting on trains and putting obstacles on railway tracks.

Railway is taking steps to counter these loopholes. However, the counter steps are not effective against the loopholes; few more extensions are suggested. A different plan of preparing the railways for future developments towards super highspeed railways is also shared along with a revenue generation model is also suggested

?

3.???? Problem Addressed

a. Cleaning Expenditure of Railways:

The garbage thrown on railway tracks can be prevented with the closed windows coaches means by upgrading and closing the sleeper coaches as in AC coaches and by introducing a proper ventilation system and garbage bins as in AC coaches. Initially this upgradation need investment however it can elevate the quality of coaches and can make phycological impact to the passenger in addition to preventing cleaning expense of tracks.

?

The third AC economy coach introduced by Indian Railways is the similar attempt. However here we are focusing on a revolution in railways so instead introducing economy class we should renovate sleeper and general coaches this will not only economically impact railways but also it will prevent resource wasting.

b. Train crashing to animals and human:

As mentioned more than 32000 animals were killed in train crash and of which many huge animal were included I these accidents this is not just loss of biodiversity it can lead to a major accident as when a train crashes to these huge animals or a group of animals due to speed of train and the heavy weight of obstruction it can lead to derailment of train. Other than this one of our premium train Vande Bharat nose is made up of fibre like material which breaks on crashing and each of this nose cost around 30000 INR.

?

To tackle this issue Indian Railways planned to construct concrete walls or any such structures along the the railway lines. However, in few day of such constructions the structures is being damaged at multiple points and mostly it is done by locals as when railways construct such boundaries they provide alternative passing which increases the commuting distance for locals and if some local is opting to cross the railway line they are mainly doing for business or farming and on travelling for a long distance reduces time to work and also impact financially to this families and on such locations the traffic congestion becomes another issue.

The proper solution to tackle can be, before constructing such boundaries a survey that from which point the maximum population of locals crosses railways lines and around that point over passing or under passing roads should be constructed and as constructing such structures can be costlier first it should be constructed at a distance of 1Km and in next phases it should be reduced to 500 meters, 250 meters and 100 meters.

c. Stone pelting and terror attempts by putting obstacles on railway line

In recent days the stone pelting on running trains have increased gradually and such attempts can be considered as terror attempts as such attempts can cause injury to many passengers and can even lead to casualties.

?The above-mentioned attempts are micro terrorism and in recent days many major terrors attempt where also found where some people put multiple obstacles on the railway tracks which can lead to derailment of train which can become a major accident.

The above-mentioned solution in section 3. of subsection b. can be a solution for this however it will additionally need a proper surveillance system and also the solution which will be described further in these documents can become the ideal one.

?4.???? Ideal solution inspired from hyperloop technology

Hyperloop is a technology where maglev train technology is supposed to renovate by removing the air resistance. In hyperloop technology which is under development a pod to be run on maglev technology in a vacuum tube. In my solution I propose to work on the plan on closing windows and then running the train in a tube and it can be calculated what is change in air pressure and if air pressure is increasing it can be managed with adding air sucker (vacuum cleaner technology) in the tube. The major plan is to use to reduce or eliminate air resistance however it can be risky if the train is air tightly packed as it can lead to reduction of air pressure in trains.

In this model the rail route will be enclosed in a tube structure and on a particular distance the air suckers will be attached to reduce air pressure. One specific mention to be made the tube should be made up of transparent material like acrylic and not metal as acrylic like material will be cheaper. Additionally using a transparent material will affect psychologically as it looks as modern model and even when a passenger is travelling for hours the passenger will not be irritated in a closed opaque structure.

?

5.???? Revenue Model

The Indian railways is expanded to more than 135,000 Kms of length if the width between the tracks of one line is considered to be one meter this area can be used to install solar panels above the tracks and the generated power could be used by railways or railways can sell this powers to the local electric providers as if the power will be distributed locally there will be less power loss and railways can earn a good amount from this.

?

Additionally, LED screens can be installed on trains and stations which can be used for advertisements and using this method will stop paper cost and even it will be environment friendly model of income.

?

6.???? Methodology

The research is case study based means the news updates and personal and others experience are being for this paper.

?

7.???? Conclusion

Working on these loopholes depend on the feedbacks of the experts working with Indian Railways and these experts even includes the loco pilots and ticket checking staffs as these officials can have their personal and ground level experience of this issues. Additionally, the loopholes can be solved in phases and this phases could be the phase of work or the area means this could be solved one by one or region by region depending upon the ability of Indian Railways to initially invest on this projects.