Southern Railway on the ‘Clean’ track

All trains to have green toilets by the end of next Five Year Plan,” was one of the major promises included in the Indian Railways Budget this year. What began as the Year of Cleanliness in 2007 has resulted in the Railways making concerted efforts in understanding the need for cleaning equipment, chemicals and their applications. The Indian Railways, divided into multiple zones, has made extensive plans for expansion, modernisation and cleanliness.

Under this development plan, priority has been given to enhancement of rail capacity, modernisation, traffic facility works and expansion and development of the network, thereby increasing cleaning areas.

Each zone has invited tenders for mechanised cleaning solutions and maintenance in keeping with the modernisation plans. Broadly, the cleaning boroughs include concourse, platforms, tracks, circulating area, dormitory, waiting rooms, toilets attached to the waiting rooms and in the stations, coaches, yards and approach roads.

Clean India Journal took the initiate to understand the cleaning solutions adopted by the Southern Railway and the challenges faced in achieving the results.

Cleaning is being handled by three departments – the traffic department for smaller stations, the medical department for bigger stations and the mechanical department for coach cleaning. The traffic and medical departments outsource cleaning of selected areas.

In case of smaller stations, the requirement for cleaning is limited, as the standing/waiting period of people at the station is lesser compared to bigger stations like Chennai Central, where people, due to longer transit time, tend to reach much earlier. Hence, these stations need to be equipped with more facilities. In the Southern Railway, almost all stations are under cleaning contractors except a few like Arakonam where inhouse staff does the cleaning. The immediate challenges and issues before the SR have been broadly divided into the following:

Tracks

Night soiling at major stations has remained a problem area with the Railways. Toilets that used to remain shut when trains are on halt have been opened up due to popular demand. Resultantly, toilets are used even by non-passengers.

“Track cleaning is best done with high pressure water jets. But people discourage contractors from using jets as the water splashes and spills all over the place,” said a railway official. “With incessant human traffic using the platforms all the time, when does one clean? May be an alternate solution with vacuuming facility could help in cleaning the tracks.” Ironically, the SR is using hose pipes to wash away the soil. Water consumption increases with these kinds of cleaning methods.

Cleaning with hose does not help, as the tracks are not on even surface. At many stations, the surface is not concrete. Further, there are sleepers on top of the surface over which tracks are laid. This makes cleaning night soil difficult. Even where tracks are laid on concrete surfaces, the machines are unable to achieve 100% cleaning. In some stations, there are also ballast tracks which are all the more hard to clean.

Protection gear

The contractors have been provided with hand gloves, boots and other safety gears. But how comfortable are these gloves and face masks? Workers generally avoid wearing these safety gears as it adds to their discomfort.

Station floors

In addition to periodic manual cleaning, scrubber driers are being used in most of the major stations of the SR. With increasing eateries at stations, stall owners without proper garbage bins are being fined. “Nevertheless, more bins are needed,” said the railway official.

“On an average, one can hold on to a waste paper or a wrapper for around 10 seconds. If a waste bin is not in the vicinity in those 10 seconds, one tends to drop the waste paper down. At railway stations, the urge to drop it on the empty tracks is much more than on the platform. Not just attractive bins but also cleaner-friendly bins are essential.”

Linen

This is one area, where the Railways seems to falter continuously and draw dissatisfaction from passengers. Linen is managed by the traffic department or IRCTC which then outsource the job to contractors. “Linen, provided to five AC coaches on every train, include two bed sheets, pillow cover, hand towel and woollen blanket per passenger, besides curtains and other linen used in the AC first and two tier classes. There are 24 berths in first class, 68 x 2 berths in AC two tier and 41 x 2 berths in AC three tier. In all two bundles of 242 sets of linen need to be washed and ironed at the end of one journey.”

Pest

The Railways has drawn public ire for pest management too. The pantry cars and coaches where food is left behind face cockroach infestation. There are pest control measures in place, but, the authorities are looking for better technology to combat this problem. Apart from the coaches, even in the waiting rooms at major stations and on the tracks, rodent burrows are a common sight.

Coaches

The Indian Railways is working towards making cleaning as an onboard service with heavy cleaning being done at terminals. The whole idea is to restrict shorter halts for passenger movements only rather than for cleaning and loading food. The IR is experimenting with a new concept of letting out the exterior of the coaches for advertising to outside agencies. The advertisements not only add to the revenue of the Railways but the agencies advertising on a particular coach also undertake cleaning of coaches. The experiment has so far been successful, with agencies sending their cleaning staff on board long journey trains. These workers clean the coaches and toilets and replace paper towels & soaps. The bathroom floors are cleaned at en route stations.

Roofs & Ceilings

Cleaning the high ceiling at Chennai Central with hanging cobwebs and smeared diesel exhaust, has been difficult due to improper access route.

Apart from the problems above, some of the challenges faced by the Railways include the need for further mechanisation of cleaning activity, minimising use of water in cleaning dirty coaches during monsoon, effective cleaning of end panels and under gear, especially the air hoses, couplings, springs, break gear and cleaning of toilets that become dirty within an hour of cleaning, especially during morning and evening hours.

Coach Cleaning

Every major depot gets a certain number of coaches for primary maintenance. At the Basin Bridge depot, 92,000 coaches are maintained. Certain activities are outsourced to contractors.

A2Z Maintenance and Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd, one of the contractors engaged in coach cleaning at the Basin Bridge, showed CIJ how the coaches get a complete wash and scrub before being wiped dry and sealed to undertake the next journey.

Coach cleaning is labour intensive, which includes activities like dusting, sweeping, degreasing, scrubbing, mechanised floor cleaning… said Kalaiselvam, Operations Manager-A2Z Maintenance. All major South-bound trains park at the Basin Bridge depot where they go through thorough cleaning. Trains leaving Chennai Central return to Basin Bridge after three to five days covered in layers of mud, grime stuck in the hems of the windows and excreta splashed on the sides. While the coaches within are strewn with garbage and left over food, tea stains and muddy footprints spread all over the floor and toilets stinking too.

As Kalaiselvam escorted us on the long stretch of the platform where several men and women were engaged in washing the exteriors of the train, he explained, “Cleaning inside the coach involves cleaning of floors, side wall panels, seat/berth and under the seat and toilets. We begin with dusting and sweeping of dry dust and garbage and follow it with thorough washing and cleaning using Roots Wizzard floor cleaning machine. Then, we do a vacuum and give the final touch up.” Though the steps are few, the cleaning is intrinsic.

Five women were at work on the Tamil Nadu Express, three were scrubbing the floor with water and Cleanex solution from Professional Care, while two were cleaning the seats and panel boards with degreaser from Eureka Forbes. Two others were cleaning the toilets with Eureka Forbes bowl cleaner. “We do not use acids, but at times, to remove stubborn yellow stains in toilets we have to use acid.” As work took a definite rhythm inside the coaches, with some women working under the comfort of the safety gears, men worked on the outside of the coaches scrubbing the exterior with scrubbing pad from the Saint Gobain glass factory and chemicals like Climax from Professional Care and Supermax, Mumbai.

Apart from scrubbers, specially made coir brushes are used for scrubbing the exterior. These come from Manali and one brush lasts for a week. “Nylon brushes are not effective and have a lot of gaps between bristles.” But when it comes to removing tough dirt/stains, be it on the exteriors of the train or in toilets, Roots high pressure jets are put to use. Apart from common coaches, the AC coaches are also subjected to the same cleaning processes. “But we also spray air freshener – jasmine spray from Professional Care – in all the eight coaches. However, pest control is handled by a separate department.”

One area in the train that requires massive cleaning, is the pantry car. As we visited the pantry car or the GT train, it was a sight similar to an aftermath of a storm. Garbage of wrappers, paper plates, disposables, food… was strewn all over the kitchen area; the side wall panels had layers of slime and oil stains, the exhaust was filled with grease… Workers used pen knives to remove oil stains that refused to give way in spite of a jet bath!

Around 27 people clean the entire train of 23 to 24 coaches in five to six hours and a minimum of seven people are required for dusting and cleaning of a single coach. At a given point of time, the Basin Bridge depot has 20 trains stationed for cleaning. A2Z handles three trains – Grand Trunk, Tamil Nadu Express and Trivandrum Mail – and cleans 101 coaches per day. Trains like Brindavan Express are cleaned during the night shift.

Station Cleaning

At the Chennai Central station, the main areas that need to be cleaned daily include the general office space, booking office, current reservation office, passenger circulating area, front entrance, bus area, parking area and ladies & gents waiting rooms. A combination of manual and mechanised cleaning with continuous supervision, especially of high traffic area on a day-to-day basis helped to keep the Chennai Central station clean, said the Station Manager. Daily cleaning is done on the tracks and 15 platforms which are managed by contractors and inhouse staff. “Platforms 1-6 and 12-15 are under two different contracts while platforms 7-11 are managed by 15 inhouse staff with inhouse machines and 26 workers from contracting agency,” G. Suresh, Chief Health Inspector. There are six sub inspectors working with him on different shifts.

Round the clock cleaning of tracks, platforms, circulating area and front or portico areas is under contract. “The basic tools and equipment that go into cleaning of platforms and concourse areas include normal brooms, nylon brushes, ezee mops of Delstar that are used by the contractors and scrubber machine from Delstar for cleaning of concourse area. Liquid soap, soda ash and oxalic acid are used to remove stain in bathrooms and toilets. In the upper class there are about nine toilets and 13 bathrooms besides four pay-and-use toilets managed by Navbharat Enterprises. Everyday, 125,000 people come to this railway station.

Workshop Cleaning

Apart from stations and yards, trains go through a major maintenance at the workshops. M.A. Inbarasu, Chief Mechanical Engineer (Planning), SR, said that these workshops were engaged in rolling stock, like passenger coaches, diesel locomotives and manufacturing of the wagons.

“In Tamil Nadu, we have got three major workshops of which two are at Perembur in Chennai – a carriage & wagon workshop and another locomotive workshop – and the third workshop in Trichi which is over 100 years old.

“The periodic overhauling of passenger coaches and wagon stock are attended to at the Chennai carriage and wagon workshop and that of AC coaches are handled at the locomotive workshop. Besides this, there is periodic diesel overhauling of important trains like the Nilgiri Mountain Railway. A workforce of more than 10,000 is engaged in various activities at these workshops.

“Scrap disposal and cleaning of workshops need to be handled properly. We are looking at changes in cleaning solutions. The Perumbur carriage & wagon workshop has completed 150 years, while the locomotive has completed 75 years. Machines for cleaning workshops and bogies like “the one attached with the tractor” could be driven to many places. These automatically broom and pull out the dust and dirt and can be unloaded in the scrap yard.” Inbarasu also showed interest in the machine using ice pellets as a cleaning medium.

‘Touch and Feel’: How a station must look

According to S. Anantharaman, Chief Commercial Manager/Passenger Management, Southern Railway, the SR deals with 20 lakh passengers per day on an average. It has a total of 728 stations that are classified, based on their earnings from ‘A1’ to ‘F’. The total area of a station is approximately 100,000 sq. mt in ‘A1’ and ‘A’ stations and the number of passengers dealt with at major stations is approximately two lakh passengers/day; at big stations it is approximately one lakh passengers/day and at other stations 50,000 passengers/day.

• The main cleaning at various stations include:

1. Removal and disposal of light debris generated. The collection of debris and wastes on track areas and disposal to recommended locations are dealt with by the health department.
2. Inspection and cleaning of water supply lines, GLR and OHTs, wells and washing the water supply lines with chemicals as per instructions.
3. Inspection of drainage lines, fittings, manholes, inspection chambers and gully traps.
4. Washing the drainage lines, manholes, inspection chambers, gully traps at intervals.
5. Inspection of toilets and bathrooms.
6. Washing the track areas and in between floor areas with high powered compressor and nozzles.
7. Cleaning the rolling shutters, collapsible gates, grill gates, fixed grills, steel/wooden doors, aluminum glazed doors, fully glazed doors, aluminium glazed windows, fully glazed windows and steel/wooden windows by mechanised/manual cleaning systems.
8. Cleaning of doors, windows, ventilators, booking windows and walls/floors tiled areas, floor areas of station buildings ceramic tiled, granite/marble/kota stone floorings, etc., and station entry points, approach roads, parking areas, compound walls and lawns with cleaning chemicals.

• Steel structures/beams of the high ceilings of the station.
• Separation of waste into three bins – non-bio degradable, recyclable and organic. The waste collected is transported to the secondary collection area from where the first two types of waste are taken care of by the municipality and by auctioning. Vermiculture plants/biogas plants have been provided for treatment of organic wastes. Nearly 21.6 tonnes of garbage is being accumulated per day. About 10,000 passengers create144 cu. ft of garbage.
• Emergency cleaning arrangements of circulating areas.

Commercial publicity in trains and upgradation of coaches

Commercial Publicity through advertisements on exterior as well as interior of coaches has been permitted by the Railway Board. Contracts, purely for such advertisements, have been awarded in the past. A new concept has been tried out by the Northern Railway whereby the advertising rights for a Rajdhani train has been awarded to an agency. The agency has upgraded the coach interior by intensive mechanised cleaning at primary and secondary ends, provided on-board housekeeping services and cleaning accessories. The agency is also committed to paying र 25 lakhs per annum for each rake of the train.

Since there has been encouraging passenger response to this scheme, the SR is looking at introducing it for the Southern Railway trains.

Specialised Coach Cleaning

Good cleaning and hygiene practices are important for any sector today. Especially, in areas like airports, railway stations and hotels where human traffic is high, proper cleaning procedure plays a very crucial role. Railways is the lifeline of the people of India. Therefore, it is very important to maintain high levels of cleanliness and hygiene in this sector.

The specialised coach cleaning activity includes a combination of mechanised equipment, chemicals, tools and trained manpower.

The mechanised equipment and the desired specifications are:

Single Disc scrubbing machine

• Height of the motor should not be more than 11 inches to go underneath the seat berths
• The rotation speed of the machine should be a minimum of 150rpm for effective scrubbing and soil removal of the coach floor – The scrubbing productivity should be about 600 sq. metre/hr – The working width should be not more than 12 inch for effective cleaning of the floor area.
• The weight should not be more than 25kg for easy management by the cleaning team

High Pressure jet cleaner

• The operating pressure should have a range between 30-100 bar
• The water discharge rate should be in the range of 6-11 litres / min for effective removal of soil as well as savings in water.
• The weight of the High pressure jet should be about 45kg
• The equipment should work at a inlet water temperature of 40ºC and should have a self priming of 1.5-3mt head

Wet and Dry vacuum cleaner

Should be a heavy duty one and be able to effectively pick up wet soil from the coaches.

Speciality chemicals to be used:

Speciality Exterior cleaning compound should have a high wetting property and the right surfactant to remove the traffic soil and protect the paint on the coach. The formulation should also contain Iron Sequestrants for compatibility with water of any hardness.

Speciality Interior cleaning compound should be scientifically blended to be mildly alkaline and contains ingredients for effective removal of stubborn stains and soil from variety of interior surfaces like Rexine, Denlam and PVC flooring. The compound should also have the ability to clean and sanitize in one cleaning action.

Glass cleaning compound should have built in ingredients to effectively clean the glass surfaces without leaving streaks and soil.

Toilet bowl is specially formulated to have the ideal viscosity for providing adequate contact time with the toilet bowl and effectively clean the toilet bowls from human soil and uric deposits.

Toilet Multi Surface cleaner is specially formulated to clean and sanitize in one action and leaves the toilet surface sparkling clean and hygienic.

Samit Sanyal

Manager Marketing, JohnsonDiversey India Pvt. Ltd

Partnering with Indian Railways

Indian Railways (IR), the largest transportation system in the world under a single management and one of the busiest rail networks in the universe, has speeded up its efforts to create clean stations, clean trains and clean train journeys in association with ManMachine India (MMI).

The IR is having 300000 wagons, 75000 passenger coaches, 9000 locomotives and transporting over six billion passengers and 600 millions tonnes of freight annually traversing across the country on a 65000 mile track. Naturally, maintaining cleanliness is really a gargantuan task. But the IR has taken this challenge very seriously over the last 10 years.

During the last CTRAM meeting, attended by the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, the issue of comfort and safety to passengers was accorded the highest priority. In different other departmental meetings held across the country, this issue figured regularly. The IR decided that strategies must be formulated and implanted for cleanliness. Attending such meetings, the MMI expressed its readiness to carry out mechanized cleaning in the railways. The IR has already accepted those recommendations of the MMI.

As the IR is a combination of railway stations, coaching depots, schools, workshops and hospitals, the success of carrying out cleanliness operations hinges on the combined efforts of all these departments. MMI, providing the technical support to the IR, has suggested that there are many areas where the cleanliness drive has to be addressed individually, as a common cleaning method cannot work there.

MMI has deployed ride-on-scrubber driers BR 90/140 for effective cleaning of large junctions like Chennai Central station in the South and Pune & Katni junctions in the West. This machine can wet scrub and dry an area of 6000 sq. mt in an hour with just a single operator and using minimum quantities of water and cleaning agents. Similarly, the cleanliness operation in various railway junctions in the North and East will be carried out by Karcher machines working round the clock.

MMI has supplied over 2000 machines to the IR at its stations, hospitals, depots, diesel sheds and workshops. These machines and equipment include, vacuum cleaners, walk behind indoor sweepers, walk behind scrubber driers, industrial vacuums, ride-on-scrubber driers, ride-on-sweepers, hot and cold high pressure cleaners, high pressure foam sprayers, hand scrubbers, single disc scrubbers, steam cleaners and high pressure cleaning systems. The company has also pressed into service the sophisticated ice blasting technology with the help of which, cleaning on a higher scale is possible without generating secondary wastes. Trained service engineers conduct regular on-site training programs for the staf

Sunil Kapoor, DGM, ManMachine India

Minister for Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav in his ambitious budget has chalked out massive expansion plans with an eye on cleanliness and sanitation. Discharge from toilets of trains on the run is a primary cause for poor sanitation at stations. Several designs of discharge free Green Toilets were developed to address this problem. Results of trials done so far have been extremely encouraging. Thus, the plan has made provision for installing Green Toilets in all 36000 coaches by the end of the 11th Plan period at a cost of र 4000 cr.

Presently, four Shatabdi and four Rajdhani trains are running with LHB (Linke-Hoffmann-Busch) Polish-designed coaches. These coaches are equipped with all modern facilities for ensuring comfort in travel. By March 2010 all Rajdhani trains and by March 2011 balance Shatabdi trains will be provided with LHB coaches.

LHB coaches in stainless steel will be provided in Mail and Express trains besides Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains. These coaches have a longer life and require less maintenance. The stainless steel coaches will also be provided with ergonomically designed Modular toilets that they will have better arrangements for cleanliness and hygiene, water discharge, air circulation and illumination.

The Annual Plan of 2008-09 is the highest ever annual plan of the railways. It is proposed to invest र 37,500 crores, which is 21% more than the previous year. The total budgetary support to be received from General exchequer is र 7874 crores, including र 774 crores to be provided from Central Road Fund.

The four major stations in the four metro cities would be redesigned with shopping arcade and eateries giving them a commercial edge and an international class. An estimated budget of र 225 crores has already been earmarked for the purpose. With huge expansion plans, the cleaning industry has a big job waiting at the Railways in years to come.