Railways develop new freight wagons to transport cars

At present, bulk of cars rolling out of factories for city outlets are transported by road.

The trial run for these special purpose wagons is over and they have been already inducted into regular service in Gurgaon-Mundra Port and Gurgaon-Chennai circuits, sources in the Railway Ministry said.

Transporting by rails would be far more efficient than trucks, they said.

Each rake comprising the modified wagons can transport up to 270 cars of various types with 100 kmph speed potential.

The technological breakthrough of modifying such wagons was achieved by Lucknow-based Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) recently which converted a particular type of BCL wagon to transport cars.

The wagons are bi-lever and modified in such a fashion that they can transport cars of varied shapes and more efficiently than trucks on roads, the sources said.

Recently, Railways had announced a slash in tariff rates for transportation of iron ore for export purpose to consolidate its market share.

Railways also plans to extend incentives to woo more customers and come up with more innovative services. One of them is the Teevra Gati Parcel train service.

The two routes identified to run the car-carrying wagons have also been selected by the PSU behemoth to operate the parcel trains.

Sources said, RDSO has also designed a new bi-lever wagon by utilising existing wagons in its fleet that can transport up to 288 cars per rake. They are likely to be made available for commercial use by the end of 2009.

The modified rakes were rolled out of the Jagadhari workshop of Northern Railway.