Bhubaneswar: To assist the nation in its fight against COVID-19 outbreak, Indian Railways has now started converting 5000 train coaches into isolation facilities.
The East Coast Railways (ECoR) will be converting 261 out of the 5000 coaches into quarantine facilities.
The converted coaches will be equipped with all essential items such as mosquito nets, one bathroom and 3 toilets, six liquid soap dispensers, four bottle holders and three dustbins in each coach, laptop and mobile charging facilities, pillow and bedsheets, plastic curtain at both ends of aisle area, mug and buckets.
Necessary medical facilities like oxygen cylinders will also be made available in these coaches. The first cabin of each coach will be used for storing medicines.
The converted coaches will be attached to form trains and will be kept at different stations.
The ECoR has planned to keep 3 trains at Bhubaneswar, 2 at Khurda Road, 2 at Sambalpur, 1 at Titlagarh, 3 at Vishakhapatnam, 1 at Vizianagaram, 1 at Cuttack and 2 at Puri.
The conversion of coaches will be done at different coaching depots and workshops across the ECoR jurisdiction.
The Mancheswar workshop will be converting 51 coaches. Thirty nine coaches will be converted at Puri, 46 coaches at Bhubaneswar, 32 at Sambalpur, 60 at Vishakhapatnam and 33 at Khurda Road station.
Till date, 23 coaches have been converted into isolation facilities, with 1 coach each at Mancheswar and Khurda Road, 5 coaches at Puri, 6 coaches each at Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur and 4 coaches at Vishakhapatnam.
ECoR will be trying to complete the conversion work by April 15, 2020.
