Railways to replace conventional coaches with LHB coaches

With Indian Railways working to increase the speed of trains, it will replace existing over 7000 conventional coaches with modern LHB (Linke Hofmann Bosch) coaches in this fiscal.

The railways prepared a plan to junk 7,332 conventional coaches manufactured at Chennai's Integral Coach Factory (ICF) this fiscal by replacing with LHB, a German Technology, coaches. The national transporter aimed at doing away with 16,238 conventional coaches by 2025 and another 23,090 coaches by 2030.

Railways has a fleet of 60,000 coaches, out of which a majority are conventional coaches.

The conventional coaches were introduced more than four decades back when the maximum train speed was about 60 kmph, while express trains are running at 110 kmph easily.

"Railways already improved its infrastructure to increase the train speed in many routes, it is keen on the introduction of LHB coaches, which have more safety features," said an official in the railways.

The railway is preparing to upgrade the speed of trains up to 130 kilometers per hour begin with two routes, from Delhi to Mumbai and from Delhi to Howrah in this fiscal. In the coming years, railways is planning to introduce more semi-high speed trains on major routes in different parts of the country.

"Introducing LHB coaches for most of the trains will help to improve travel comfort and to increase the speed at 120-130 km per hour", said an official.

Unlike Integral Coach Factory (ICF)- designed conventional train coaches, the LHB coaches carrying capacity is more and has higher speed potential.

The LHB train coaches are lighter in weight and have anti-climbing features. These anti-climbing features, prevents coaches from getting piled up during rail accidents