Challenges In Railroad Track Maintenance

By Harriet Porter


Maintenance in this case can be described as the daily upkeep of a railway to ensure its success in meeting the transport needs of the people. This includes monitoring and repair of railway infrastructure such as the power supply, lights and the tracks. This is important so as to curb the incidence of accidents and other unfortunate events. Railroad track maintenance is important in ensuring the transportation systems run without interruptions.

Railway works can be quite noisy and disruptive to surrounding areas especially if they are residential. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that a range of measures are put in place to minimize this. Some of these means are general such as sensitizing employees and contractors to be considerate towards the locals near the railway; having generators and lighting far from houses and where applicable, using licensed tools.

As a result, it may be important to notify the residents around a potential working site at least 10 days before work begins. It may also be necessary to notify local authorities about such planned works and projects.

The information dissemination could be done through distribution of letters to the locals near where the works will be. The media can also be used to achieve this. These should aim at explaining exactly what the maintenance crew are going to do and when they expect to start and finish it. Sometimes, it may even be necessary to inform official representatives such as members of parliament and councilors.

Most of the time, however, sending notifications prior to repair work activity is not feasible. This is because the railway works throughout the day all week and some emergency repairs have to be taken care of fast. Otherwise it would lead to a great inconvenience to its users. This facility should as a result be taken care of and maintained on a daily basis without any delays.

This is even worse when you consider that most of the repair and maintenance drills take place at night and on weekends. Most countries actually make it a law that railway repairs take place when they are closed. This has made living along railways a big problem.

Trains function around the clock. It is therefore difficult to plan on maintenance schedules. Especially when there are countless miles of track, crossings and bridges. The railway facility has to be well maintained throughout the year to make sure that travelling needs are not compromised and to ensure the safety of the passengers.

These maintenance and engineering projects also have to be planned months ahead between the train and freight operating firms. Such projects are usually a smaller part of a bigger and more complex work programme. Small alterations could affect all the other parts.There is also a huge work load on the few available maintenance and engineering staff. It is therefore difficult to have work done smoothly and quickly. The same staff tend to have a hard time covering large track distances at different consecutive shifts. To curb the situation, more labor is recommended.




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