Golden Rock Railway Workshop

Central Workshops, Golden Rock
Built 1928 (1928)[1]
Location Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli
Industry Railways
Products Rolling stock
Employees 6000 (Approx.)
Architect East India Company
Area 200 acres (81 ha)
Address Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli Tamil Nadu

The Golden Rock Railway Workshop (officially Central Workshop, Golden Rock) is situated in Ponmalai (Golden Rock), Tiruchirapalli in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is one of the three mechanical railway workshops serving the southern zone of the Indian Railways.

This repair workshop is basically a "Mechanical Workshop" which comes under the control of the Mechanical Department of the Indian Railways. The other two mechanical workshops of Southern Railway are located in Perambur, Chennai. They are "Carriage Works, Perambur" and "Loco Works, Perambur".[lower-alpha 1]

History

Branch shops on both sides connected by a traverser

This central workshop was set up in 1897 by South Indian Railways at Nagapattinam mainly to cater to the requirement of steam locomotive maintenance. South Indian Railways decided to shift the workshop to Trichinopoly, presently known as Tiruchchirappalli, owing to its locational advantage. Consequently, foundation stone was laid by Mrs. R.P. MUNRO on 20.10.1926. It was shifted to Tiruchchirappalli in 1928 because of its strategic location. The Central Workshop, Golden Rock is functioning at Tiruchchirappalli since then.

The total area of this workshop is around 200 acres (0.81 km2), out of which 26 acres (110,000 m2) is covered under roof. At present 6,091 employees are working in this workshop. This workshop is primarily engaged in the activities of DSL Loco POH, heritage steam locomotive POH, coaching stock maintenance and wagon manufacturing and other sundry activities.

This workshop does have a long traverser way around 600 metres long and 80 feet (24 m) wide. This workshop was involved in repairing of Royal Air Force's air planes during World War II.

This workshop when built had state-of-the-art facilities rarely seen in those days. It had its own powerhouse which generated electricity for the workshop and the colony. In fact, Railway colony, Golden Rock was one of the first places to be lit by electrical lights in Tiruchirappalli city those days.

Organization structure

Core business activities

Diesel locomotive maintenance

Diesel Electric Loco periodical overhauling (POH) started in Goldenrock Shop in the Year 1969, to cater to the requirements of SR and SCR. It started with a capacity of 0.5 Loco/Month. The capacity was stepped up to 10 locos per month from July 1990 onwards to meet the needs of 5 Railways i.e. Southern Railway, South Central Railway, South Western Railway, West Central Railway and North Western Railway. Presently, Shop is capable of overhauling 12 locomotives per month.

In addition to the Locomotives overhauling, Diesel Shop is attached with the following Support shops.

  1. Engine Block Reclamation Shop
  2. Cylinder Liner Plating Shop
  3. Coil Manufacturing Shop
  4. Heavy Electrical Repair Shop

Carriage maintenance

GOC Shop is undertaking the following major activities in carriage maintenance.

Apart from normal overhauling, GOC Shop had established its expertise in the following areas:

1. Conversion / construction of coaches for Nilgiri Mountain Railways.

2. Export of old MG coaches to other nations after Maintenance & Re-Modeling by RITES Limited.

Wagon manufacturing activity

Production wing

Mechanical Mill Wright Shop

Production wing of GOC focuses its attention mainly on manufacturing of components required for maintenance of locomotives and carriages and wagon manufacturing. It also take care of the requirement of various divisions by supplying wheels for rolling stock maintenance. Besides, Production wing has taken up the manufacturing of steam locomotives required for Nilgiri Mountain Railways and Darjeeling Himalayan Railways.

Production wing comprises the following shops:

Foundry Shop, DSL Component Shop, Machine Shop, Wheel Shop, Fabrication & Smithy Shop, Erecting Shop, Tool Room & Mechanical Mill Wright shop

Support activities

Besides core business activities, GOC shop is equipped with the following support activities.

Material management

Goldenrock Workshop is attached with 3 Stores Depots to stock and issue the materials, whenever it is needed for production.

Besides Stocking depot it is having a scrap store depot to dispose the scrap arising out of production and maintenance activity.

Stores depot takes all out efforts to ensure the availability of material always. The availability is used to be in the range of 95 to 98%. Besides of stocking and issuing of material, stores depot is always keen on system improvement. The following system improvements have been achieved in the recent past.

Electrical plant maintenance

There is a dedicated team to maintain the electrical equipments and machineries available in GOC Shop. The main objectives of the Plant Maintenance Team is to reduce the down time of the machineries available in the shop.

Apart from maintaining the Electrical machineries, the team is also looking after electrical power distribution system and conservation measures, with close monitoring of electrical energy utilization, the shop had reduced the electrical energy from 81.12 Lakhs unit in 2007–08 to 75.58 Lakhs in the year 2008–09. it had resulted in a financial savings of Rs.29.04 Lakhs in 2008–09.

Mechanical plant maintenance

Mechanical Plant maintenance is also termed as Mechanical Millwright. The Mechanical Millwright Shop takes care of the upkeeping of machineries and equipments. In addition to break down attention, it also pays preventive attention to critical machineries like Overhead Cranes, Material Handling Equipments and other special purpose machines.

Presently, around 1,241 pieces of machinery are installed in the GOC Shop and are regularly maintained by the plant maintenance team.

Works

Recent Orders

See [3]

Safety cell

Safety Department at GOC Shop is functioning for the last 30 years for the goal of reducing accidents, injuries and hardship of the labours by improving the work methods and their knowledge in creating awareness in safe working methods. This approach was focused through systemic training, mock drills, shop floor counseling, data updating and scientific elimination of work related hazards, through display of posters, issue of safety magazines incorporating various safety procedures and catching an emotional rapport with audience through tailor made safety modules.

The Safety Department has bagged three State-level Awards from Government of Tamil Nadu in three different fields for the year 2005.

Basic training centre

Shop is attached with a training centre mainly to cater to the requirement of Act Apprentice courses under Apprenticeship act 1961. This is a statutory in nature. The duration of the training varies from one year to four years depending on the entry level qualification and trade in which the apprentice is to be trained.

Apart from act apprenticeship the Training Centre also takes care of the need based training for the Artisans, Special supervisory skill training for supervisors.

Computer centre

GOC Shop is equipped with a full-fledged information system required at management, operational level. It has developed the following packages.

Welfare activities

Premature death assistance scheme

All the employees of GOC Shops (including Stores Department) are in the roll of PDA Scheme and a nominal amount of Rs.5/- from each employee is deducted from their salary towards this scheme. As a social security measure the family members of the deceased employee is given an assistance of Rs.10,000/- under this scheme. The employees who are in the roll of PDAS and retiring from service are presented with a Sonata Wrist Watch and an Executive Bag as a memento for safe keeping of Settlement and service related records.

Creche

A Crèche is provided near the entrance of the Armoury Gate to take care of the infants / children of the women employees of this workshop and it is run by administration.

Workmen’s canteen

A modernized canteen with a provision of gas cooking is successfully functioning to cater to the requirements of the employees of GOC Shop. Food is cooked by steam in a very hygienic manner with good quality which has widely been appreciated by the employees. Refreshments such as snacks / special tea / coffee etc., are arranged and supplied to the employees in their work spot itself. The Canteen contains two dining halls with a capacity to accommodate 160 employees at a time for lunch. The dining halls are very neat and tidy and cleanliness is given top priority here. Around 350 meals are served daily. Nine booths have been set up from which tea and snacks are sold.

Homeopathy clinic

A homeopathy clinic in Railway Colony is functioning to cater to the requirements of the Railway employees and their family members. The clinic is looked after by a Homeopathy Doctor who is paid from Staff Benefit Fund. Entire expenditure of this clinic is met from SBF.

Rail Kalyana Mandapam

Rail Kalyana Mandapam in GOC colony is catering to the requirements of the shop employees adequately. Necessary modification have been effected by providing false roofing and ceramic tiled floor for better utility and aesthetics. It is managed by a committee of representatives of the administration and recognized unions.

Education for wards of Railway Employees

To cater the educational needs of the children of the railway employees working in and around the Goldenrock, schools were established during pre-independence itself. In GOC Railway colony, once there were four railway schools and two Kindergartens were functioning. Now due to desertation of residential quarters only one school is functioning.

Railway Colony, Golden Rock

A House in 'C'-Type in the Railway Colony

GOC Workshop has 3072 quarters. The entire colony is classified as 'A', ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘F’, ‘H’, ‘J’ & ‘G’ Type and Special Bungalow. Allotments are made as under:

A housing committee consisting of WPO & APO and members from the recognized unions and one member from the SC/ST Association monitors housing activities. This committee does the allotment of quarters to the eligible employees. Allotment of quarters on out-of-turn basis is not encouraged by the committee.

A colony committee of representatives of the administration and recognized unions is functioning. The Colony Committee meets periodically to review the requirement/ improvement in the colony. On the Official side it is represented by CWM, WPO, APO, ADEN.

Place of Worship

The colony area has temples like Sri Mariyamman Kovil, Sri Kamatchiyamman Kovil and Om Sakthi Kovil. Churches include St.Joseph Church, St.Peters Church and a CSI Church. Close to the railway colony, there is also a Mosque.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The Integral Coach Factory, Perambur is a production unit and is classified as a factory and not as a workshop. The primary objectives of a Railway Workshop is repair and maintenance work and not production. However, due to changing requirements, many workshops, including Central Workshops of Goldenrock, are used nowadays for regular production activities.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Golden Rock Railway Workshop.
  1. ↑ "GOC "
  2. ↑ http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/03/stories/2007090359040300.htm
  3. ↑ http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/05/stories/2008110551370500.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/11/stories/2008121150640200.htm

Further reading

Coordinates: 10°47′26″N 78°43′14″E / 10.790678°N 78.720496°E / 10.790678; 78.720496

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