Kolkata: The Eastern Railways (ER) has installed automatic coaching washing plants (ACWP) at various places, including the EMU car-shed Howrah.
The Automatic Coach Washing Plant is a multistage external cleaning system for coaches in rakes, using detergent solution, high pressure water jet and vertical rotating brushes. In addition, it has an effluent treatment system and water softening plants for use of soft water for external washing.
For one rake of 12 coaches of an EMU train, it takes only seven to eight minutes for exterior washing of the entire rake. At an average, per day, 13 EMU rakes are washed through this ACWP at Howrah EMU Carshed. The washing system uses 20 per cent of the freshwater for each train while the remaining 80 per cent of the water which will be used would be recycled water.