Glimpses of Jagadhri Workshop, Yamunanagar, Northern Railway

Recently a joint team of BCT divsion and Parel workshop supervisors visited Jagadhri to do comparative study of the two workshop. The visit was an eye opener for the team. It appears that Parel needs a complete revamp to come upto the level of Jagadhri.
Slideshow is on the right.

Endless inventry in electrical coaching , whats the remedy?

Inventry management is becoming more and more difficult in electrical coaching with time. Just have a look:-

• Fans:- 6 types.
• Lights:- 13 types.
• Alternator:- 3 Types.
• AC plants:- 4 Types , with different non-interchangeable parts inside each of these.
• Batteries:- 7 Types.
• Battery Chargers:- 4 Types
• Rectifier/Regulator Unit:- 2 Types.

Among all these types, different makes have different designs. Result- difficulty in inventry management.
BCT division is tackling this issue two ways:-
1.Suggesting RCF to stick to same generic design for all makes.
2.Stocking of the equipments. ( In last 3 years more than 50 equipments have been stocked).

Era of open type compressors coming back?

After horrible experience with sealed type compressors ( FRPCPY >15) in AC systems, we now see latest coaches being rolled out by RCF with open type compressors.
These new coaches are having RMPUs fitted with HOB make open cimpressors which are basically inspired by DMRC experience.

Mumbai Division's first WIND TURBINE inaugurated

"वायु -शक्ति ", the first wind turbine of BCT was inaugurated by Sh. Girish Pillai, DRM -BCT on 30th July 2010.

Installed on the rooftop of power-car building, this wind turbine is of 650 W and charges the coach batteries besides supplying the shop floor lighting load.

Supplied by M/S ARCO, this wind turbine could not have been successfully installed without efforts of Sh.Anand, Section Engineer.

Blunder in circuit of AC fans in T.L. coaches

Today a coach(GS 09448) arrived in Bandra in 2472 Jammutawi Express with no fans working. The battery had got drained somewhere before Ratlam, then TC was provided but that helped only lights. And the caoch came all the way from Boaroda to Bandra without a single fan working.Why?

Because of this circuit:-

Here you see that in case a TC is provided , no supply will be available to the negative of fan inverters.

BCT division has identified this problem in the begining itself and has modified many coaches of ADI division and NWR and NR by this simple modification:-

But the surprise here is how come the same error in circuit occurred in the coaches manufactured by both RCF and ICF?

Cheif Electrical Engineer-W.R., Sh. A K Malhotra releases first issue of coaching monthly newsletter

First issue of कोच खबर , the monthly newsletter of Mumbai Division's coaching branch was inaugurated on 29th June 2010 at Churchgate by Cheif Electrical Engineer -Western Railway Sh.A.K. Malhora and CESE-Western Railway Sh.Ashok Kumar.
The monthly newsletter is focussed mainly upon escorting ACCIs and ACCAs who spend ost of their duty time on line. The contents are:-
.Cases of good and bad troubleshooting.
.One RDSO SMI.
.Do's and Dont's while troubleshooting.
.Message for staff getting retired this month.
.Information of general use for escorting staff.
.Highlihting technical probelm of the month.
This newsletter could come out only because of immense efforts done by Dy.CMM-MS Sh Sudhir Sharma, and Astt. Printing Manager-MX, Sh Sanjay Patil.

Printed in Rajbhasha, this newsletter will be improved further in content and quality.

Electrical Safety Week-2010

Electrical Safety Week was observed in the coaching branch of Mumbai division from 21st June to 27th June. Following activities were oganised during the week:-
Electrical safety seminar among the staff.
Technical discussion were held emphasising upon importance of correct fuse ratings and MCBs.
Electrical safety slogans were pasted at all places on shop floor and powercars.
Competetion held to detect potential safety hazard in coaches.
Sh.Ramakrishna,ELF-II of Garibrath/Bandra was awarded with cash prize and certificate.

First 100 days failure meeting of Western Railway

Western Railway's first ever 110 days failure meeting was held in Parel workshop on 12.04.2010 chaired by CESE Sh. Ashok Kumar.
It was attended by representatives of all divisions.

Solenoid Valves In Underslung AC Coaches

Recently there was a minor fire case in power car in N.Rly:-

shown above is the overheated solenoid valve coil.

Shown above are the heated up wirings in the vicinity of that solenoid.

Solenoid valve is an electromechanical device which is used to pass/block flow of oil/refrigerant in AC plants of underslung coaches. The coil of solenoid valve can be opearted at 110V Dc or 110 V AC or 230 V AC.
Solenoid in Power Car
Underslung AC power car has only one AC plant comprising one compressor, one condensor and two evaporators( one each for guard and power car staff). Each evaporator are fitted with one solenoid valve.Function of solenoid valve is to bypass refigerant from evaporator so that only non-cooled air is blown in. Location of this solenoid is at chest height in guard compartment.

coil 44 and 44a ( in right most line) is the solenoid in above drawing.

the blue device shown above is the 230V ac solenod coil, plunger of which is showm in the picture below:-


Solenoid in Coaches
Coaches have two AC plants ( one compressor , one condensor and one evaporator in each). Each of the compressor have one solenoid as shown in the bottom left corner in the picture below:-

Its function is to allow passage of oil in through the red pipelines so that compressor's duty can be halved ( allowing refigerant in only 2 out of 4 cylinders) in order to avoid inrush during starting.
Location of this vlave is under the coach body on each side.


this valve can be made off from inside the coach by the switch called "capacity control" as shown above.

During the course of time these solenoids have been bypassed electrically and mechanically from the coaches.

Launch of New Log Books

Shri Rambabu Singh , Electric Fitter Grade- (retired on 31-01-2010)inaugurating the new log book.

New log books were launched in the diviosion recently for Power Cars, LHB coaches, and SGAC coaches. Some new features added are:-
1.Troubleshooting page alongwith a circuit diagram included in each log book.
2.Column for recording health of mobile charging points introduced.
3.Column for emergency light checking introducd.
4.Column for recodring health of Thermostat introduced.
5.Some irrelevent columns removed and some modified.
6.Better quality and more pages.

C-122 sould be C-120 . The V Belt enigma.

While analysing increasing V belt failures, a shocking fact was revealed.V belts are oversized !! We achieve not less than 30 mm deflection upon application of 4 kg with 295 mm long new BTM on new belts !!
Another make tried, same results. That means drawing no SKEL 3940 is wrong. Or belt length of 3150 mm is more than required !So, we cant give prescribed tension even with everything proper. And inadequate tension means belt slippling and consequent failures.
16 mm defection comes on 4 kg when the spring is only 230 mm . Thats as good as no spring.

New LHB Shatabdi Rake Inaugurated.

On 15t August, new rake of LHB shatabdi was flagged off from BCT. While commissioning, it was found that in two coaches thermal isulation was missing.Many issues- some sorted out, some still pending. The rake is , many times better than the previous Non -LHB shatabdi.

Scroll Compressor Inside Out.

Why does scroll compressor fail in LHB coaches so much ? We did a tear down analysis of the same.

Please dont abuse pantry equipments

Howsoever hard electrical department tries to maintain all pantry and mini-pantry equipments in order, we can't have a 100% effeciency unless users of these equipments stop abusing them. This is an appeal.

Measuring and Monitoring Relay (MMR)

The MMR is very critical protection device in view of no overcurrent protection of the RMPU motors which get burnt on single phase faults. The ideal test bench should have:-
1.Facility to apply varying voltage to test the relay.
2.Indications onpanel to show status of NO NC contacts.
3.User friendly features.

Required- Design modification in LHB coaches 750 V junction box

Electrical Staff Maintaining Shatabdi Express

Electrical Safety Week-2009

Scroll Compressor failures

Some obseravtions regarding Scroll compressors:-

1.They were provided to replace the reciprocating Bristol compressors which had high failure rates.
2.Even scroll compressors in 2003-04 LHB coaches are having FRPCPY of over 20.
3.Howrah division has pretty less FRPCPY since their coaches are new.
4.Coaches of 07 and 08 series have had less failures in Mumbai Divsion.
5.Scroll compressors when fitted in SGAC coaches are found to work well.
6.None of the scroll lasts the life of 8 years. They fail in first three years of years.
7.Failures are comparitevy less reported in NR and ER.

Now the question is why they fail so much :-
Some contributing factors are:-
1.Bypassing of LP switches in order to "push" cooling.
2.Choking in the 'solenoid' which is redundant in the system.
3.Bypassing of sensors after failing of sensors.
4.Choking of Dryer.
5.Leakage of oil from capillary, and no provision of top up.
6.Overcharging of gas (it requires not > 3kg for LEEL and 3.5 kg for Sidwal RMPUs)

Pre Summer Drive launched and completed .

How we can live upto the expectations of our customers

A tired pasenger enters a train after all the tiresome road journey he took to reach the station. He sighs with relief as he enters the pre-cooled coach from the ambient 40 degrees. He is further pleased to find a clean coach with all the bright illumination and silent but effective fans inside the coach. The coach attendent greets him to his delight and offers fresh linen. The passenger is assured by the coach attendant that he will be woken up at the desired station by him. The passenger is snoring now into a sound sleep. The sleep that he needs, the sleep he might remeber his best ever.
Are we doing this? Where we need to fine tune ? Lets think, and make the coaches of Mumbai division of Western Railway a the most pleasant ones.