Indian Central Railway launches new welding tech to repair rails

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The Nagpur division of Central Railway successfully carried out welding of rails with the help of latest Mobile Flash Butt Welding (MFBW) plant on Katol-Metpanjra section. Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) BK Gupta said flash butt welding process is desirable to repair weld failures, to avoid repeated problems. A trial block of 2.30 hours was taken in which six welds were in 60-metre length rail. “The progress rose to 11 welds a day later in the same block duration. The progress will further increase with the experience gained. Under the process, a fully self-contained flash butt welding unit mounted on a rail-cum-road vehicle is required to carry out the job,” says Gupta.
Mr.Gupta hailed the leadership of general manager DK Sharma, and guidance of principal chief engineer SK Agarwal for putting the latest technology to use. Gupta said the new welding technology is essentially a forging process and the material of the weld is chemically identical to the parent body of the rails, which means its strength and other characteristics are identical to those of the body of the rails. Flash butt welding also typically results in fewer defects. Earlier, Through Weld Renewal (TWR) welding was done by aluminium thermic (AT) process which has its inherent disadvantages of quality. The speed of work was also slow in TWR by AT welds. With the latest process, Central Railway aims to wipe out arrears of TWR in quick time. The other divisions have also been asked to take up this process.