At rail joints. fish plates are used with four bolts without washers. In many places. bolts are missing due to stolen.
(c)Sleepers
The majority of sleepers are unplated timber and about (65000) no: of pre stressed concrete sleeper have been used with Pandrol clips. Bearing plates are not used. The sleeper density is 2,430 per miles on the main line and 2,220 per mile on other line the average life time of timber is 12 to 15 years for hard wood and 5 years for soft wood. Creosoting process cannot done fully because of insufficient amount of creosoting oil and it causes short life time of wooden sleeper. Due to rail creep, and the fact that the track is not sufficiently embedded in the ballast, the sleepers are not laying square to rails. The spacing of sleeper is 2'2” (660mm). But in many places .the spacing is much greater than that amount because of missing of sleepers. For the whole system, 0.85 million numbers of sleepers are required for replacement. During the period from 1984/85 to 1989/90, MR received only 269,100 Nos per year on the average. Due to untiring effort of the Government, MR received 516,900 Nos of sleepers per year on the average between the year 1990/91 to 1995/96. For the long term. MR plan to used the concrete sleeper instead of wooden sleeper.
(d)Ballast
Ballast is of crushed stone. Size is 1" to 1.5" and 8cu-ft/foot run. Standard ballast section is shown in Appendix "C". the whole network is suffering from severe lack of ballast. There is hardly any ballast under the sleepers and in many places weeds are growing in the ballast . Although MR is running four stone quarries in a short time. it cannot meet demand. Perpetual lack of hopper wagon is one of the causes for lack of ballast. MR runs small capacity crushing units in some places. some unit can riot run efficiently because of lack of hopper wagons. For the existing rail network. the volume of ballast to be replenished per year is 60,000 sadrum. During the period from 1984/85 to 1990/91, MR can replenish the ballast I 0856 sadrum per year on the average. MR can replenish the ballast 26,000 sadrum in 1993/94 and 50,000 sadrum in 1995/96. Most of the track is apparently shortage with ballast. good track condition is hard to maintain.
