Special water trains complete 100 trips

According to an official from Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metro Water), each trip brings 2.5 million litres of drinking water and the first train arrived on July 12. “We have transported 250 million litres of water in hundred days,” the official said.

When water crisis in the city was at its peak, the State government had requested the Southern Railway to operate two rakes to bring water to Chennai from other parts of the state. The Railway also allocated two rakes, each with 50 wagons, and modified them at Kota workshop of West Central Railway to make them suitable for transporting water. 

Each wagon has can carry 50,000 litres. Metrowater also had to create pipelines to decant water from the wagons at Villivakkam railway station, from which the water is being transported to Kilpauk water treatment plant.

When the Metro Water decided to operate the ‘water special trains’, it was proposed to make four trips a day and bring 10 million litres of water per day. But, owing to the operational issues, the Southern Railway could only operate one or two trips a day.

According to sources in the Railways, it would take around four hours to load the wagons at Jolarpet and another four hours to take off the load in Villivakkam. It takes around four hours for transportation.

The water being brought from Jolarpet is actually from Cauvery river which is being supplied to Jolarpet under Vellore Integrated Drinking Water Scheme.