SCHEDULE OF TRAINING
WEEK 1 : TRAIN TRAFFIC CONTROL
Train traffic control plays an important role in day to day functions of our trains. Being the second largest network in world railway cannot be handled by any private party. After all managing such a network efficiently is not a child’s play but still it is being managed. So we will look into its basics like organisation and some insight of equipments and other stuff used. “Even a one minute delay in train schedule has to be reported with reason” These were the lines by the teaching staff there.
In other words what we see outside is just something but inside goes a complex process that ranges from finding solutions to operational difficulties,faults to ensuring repairs, maintaining schedule despite delays and stuffs like that. Even controlling traction(overhead wires) requires a complex network ranging from controlling it remotely to repairing it on the field (within specified time).
WEEK 2 : RAIL-NET
Well after the ending of week one at Train Traffic Control starts week 2 at rail net.. Rail net refers to the public network through which railway connect to to public in general. Example are Passenger Reservation System (PRS), Indian Railway Freight Trains Reporting (FOIS) etc.
A person reserving his tickets online does not know and hence can’t appreciate the difficulties and challenges in maintaining such huge network of railways nor he knows the complexities involved in such networks. While we did not go very deep into the topic, we definitely tried to touch the skin of the animal so as to give an idea about it. After all it is very complex and complex things require time and effort to understand.
WEEK 3 : UNRESERVED TICKETING SYSTEM (UTS)
Oh my god!! “My tickets are not booked! How do we get to my home”. “No problem! we will go by general” replied his friend “Its not that our home is very far.” Then he goes to the station and buys a unreserved ticket. “Unreserved tickets” are valid for one day for any train provided the class or the type of train ticket is same. After all you can’t travel a super-fast train with a passenger ticket. But that also requires a centralised mechanism to store ticket number and data regarding it. There UTS comes into picture. It requires high speed network so it works on optical fibre cable.
So, Let’s start. Since the trainer was very busy he could teach us only for a couple of days. So The material won’t be too much. Here we will primarily talk about the network regarding the UTS system.
WEEK 4 : LAB
Well the week started with a big boom of students. The students suddenly increased from just me in Control to 3 in Railnet to around 7 in UTS to a whooping 24 in lab where the seating capacity was barely 6-7. It took some time adjusting students and then the classes continued as usual. Nevertheless the opening ceremony of that week was given by SSE/TELE/LAB himself.
We learnt various instruments and other equipment and the techincal details about them. We also learnt about different components of various instruments used there. It was basically a practical experience of all the things we have done in other weeks.
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