GOVT TECH
Smart Yards for
Indian Railways
By Sanjeev S Jasrotia
Indian Railways is envisaging
converting its freight
examination yards into
technology driven Smart Yards for
automatic detection of defects in
freight wagons.
Moving towards predictive
maintenance practices in yards,
Indian Railways is envisaging
converting its freight examination
yards into technology driven “Smart
Yards” for automatic detection of
faults/defects/deficiencies in freight
wagons.
These Smart Yards will predict
anomalies like Hot Wheel Hot Axle,
defective bearings, defective wheels,
hanging/loose/missing parts etc. long
before any failure actually happens.
Smart Yards will be equipped with
various automated technology driven
systems including OMRS, Hot Box
Detector, Wheel Profile Recorder
and Machine Vision Equipments etc.
The concept of smart yard is
to use modern repair facilities,
infrastructure, tools, automatic
defect detection equipments and
digital technology to enhance safety,
reliability and productivity in freight
trains operation.
The automatic defect detection
equipments of Smart Yard shall
provide advance data about hot
axles and wheels, wheel flats,
wheel profile and diameter, load
imbalance, spring breakage,
loose and hanging parts, wear
condition of brake blocks etc.
even before the rake arrives at the
maintenance yard. It will then use
this information for objective fault
assessment and proactive staffing,
thereby, reducing turn-around
time while boosting safety and
improving productivity.
Initially in 1st phase, 40
identified yards will be converted
into Smart Yards. COFMOW (a
unit of Indian Railways) has been
nominated for carrying out the
overall work of Smart Yards.
Besides making Smart
Yards, Indian Railways is also
moving towards the adoption of
automation and instrumentation
in its maintenance practices for
detecting defects or deficiencies in
rolling assets. The objective is to
achieve machine assisted automatic
identification of defects in the
Rolling Stock, well before any
catastrophic failure.
This will lead to a paradigm
shift in maintenance practices of
Rolling Stock of Indian Railways
from “Time Based Maintenance”
to “Condition Based Predictive
Maintenance” with a view to
enhance reliability and availability
along with improved safety of
Rolling Stock during run.
For this, Railways has begun
implementing, On-line Monitoring
of Rolling stock System (OMRS).
36 February 2020 | www.smartgovernance.in