kolkata: Eastern Railway now has a Vande Bharat coach maintenance depot at Jheel siding of Howrah to ensure the semi-high speed train’s maintenance. The work on this train will be done by an integrated team of specialists from different units of ER.
The depot has been augmented by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) in two phases and can maintain rakes of eighteen coaches length with an all-weather 425 metre long shed having three tier maintenance facility. This depot was inaugurated by the ER’s General Manager Arun Arora on March 29.
Vande Bharat, which is being plied from Howrah to New Jalpaiguri, was virtually inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 30, 2022. It started its commercial journey in January.
This depot also has three lines for washing cum maintenance of passenger trains. On the same day, GM also inaugurated an Automatic Coach Washing Plant at Howrah for the EMU shed. According to the officials, this plant is eco-friendly as 70 per cent of water used here will be Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) treated wastewater. Moreover, it will use less water for cleaning. Usually six kilolitre water is used to manually clean one rake, according to officials, with inclusion of this plant the water consumption per rake will go down to 0.72 kilolitre.