Own TXR Facilities

A major challenge is maintenance of wagon examination facilities by Railways. Rakes carrying containers need to be examined and each rake is assigned a facility for examination. And then a certificate is issued by the Train Examiner (TXR).

The challenge arises when a facility is away from the main circuit when the rake is operational. Moving the rake a long distance to reach the facility has operational difficulties. Despite having a provision in the Model Concession Agreement (MCA) of allowing CTOs to invest in their own TXR facilities, the Indian Railways is not allowing the train examination by the non-IR TXR staff and not encouraging wagon maintenance by other parties. Ajay Shukla, Member Traffic, Railway Board explains, “The MCA has been drafted with the mandate for creation of terminals by CTOs with maintenance facilities. However, limited number of terminals have been developed by CTOs and limited number of these terminals have been provided with infrastructure for wagon maintenance. They are dependent on Railways’ terminals for wagon maintenance. Mechanical examination of trains is directly connected with safety of train operation and will be best when maintenance of a given rake is with a single entity. However, exami- “There are no certified or known agencies that can take up the task of private TXR examination. If IR were to allow the task of private examination of trains, they would need to put in place a certification process for examining agencies. Also, at present, five per cent of the rail freight paid to IR that particular rolling stock. The problem arises when competent railway personnel are not posted round-theclock at the container terminals. Aditya Prakash Mishra, Managing Director, Kutch Railway says, “CTOs have to transport staff from their base station to the container terminals, as per the convenience and availability