Railways in trouble with rescue cranes

Most of 22 relief cranes of Bangladesh Railway (BR) are either outdated or broken, causing difficulties in carrying out salvage operations after train accidents.

At least 10 are over 35 years old while three are between 21 and 35 years old, according to BR documents.

Three are now broken. Only six are within their economic life, which is 20 years.

Of the 22 relief cranes, 15 are meter-gauge and seven broad-gauge, the documents show.

Most of the outdated cranes are steam-operated and spare parts for them are not available in the international market, BR officials said.

Besides, some of them are not capable of conducting salvage operations as they are too "small" and take more than usual time to complete a rescue operation, causing passengers' sufferings, they said.

Under the circumstances, the BR has made a move to procure three relief cranes to ensure quick salvage operation after accidents to resume rail communications, officials said.

As per the plan, the two modern broad-gauge and one meter-gauge hydraulic accident relief cranes would be bought at an estimated cost of Tk 230.8 crore between January 2021 and December 2023.

However, the project cost would be finalised later.

A committee, led by Railways Ministry Secretary Salim Reza, yesterday gave the go-ahead to a preliminary development project proposal (PDPP) of "Procurement of Meter-Gauge and Broad-Gauge Accident Relief Crane for Bangladesh Railway)."

Apart from procuring the cranes, 12 BR engineers would receive one-month foreign training under the project.

Around Tk 1 crore would also be spent on procuring transport vehicles for the project.

Now, the proposal would be sent to the Planning Commission for approval and then it would be sent to the Economic Relations Division for managing foreign fund for the project, Project Director Md Burhan Uddin told The Daily Star yesterday.

The 3,018km railway network is covered by the accident relief cranes stationed at 12 sheds in two railway's zones.

Some 91 train accidents took place during 2018-19 fiscal year. Of them, 78 were train derailments and in 10 incidents trains crashed into things, according to railway information book-2019.

After any accident is reported, relief cranes from the nearby shed is called for conducting the rescue operation, but in some cases, the authorities have to call cranes from far away due to lack of capability of nearby cranes, a railway official said.

"In many cases, rescue operation takes more than usual time as most of the cranes are outdated," the official, who have long experience in railway operation, told The Daily Star, wishing not to be named.

Burhan Uddin, also the chief mechanical engineer (development), said the addition of three cranes would ensure quick salvage operation after any accident to restore rail communications.

About the financing in the project, he said as per their proposal, 70 percent of the project cost would come from foreign funds and 30 percent from the government funds.

Once the PDPP is approved, they will prepare and submit development project proposal (DPP) for getting approval from the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) to start implementation of the project, he said.

"We hope to add the three cranes to our fleet within the next two years," he said, adding that the cranes would be stationed in Dhaka, Rajbari, and Chattogram.