Train 18 Just The Beginning: Indian Railways Upgrading All Operational Tech To Enter Semi-High Speed Rail Era

Indian Railways is revamping and upgrading its technology in all areas related to train operations, including rolling stock to enter the era of Semi High-Speed Train, as per Railway Board’s Member of Rolling Stock Rajesh Agarwal, Rail Analysis has reported.

This was revealed during an interaction with the media on the occasion of a three day National Level Conference chaired by Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer “to ponder upon New Trends in Rolling Stock- Challenges Ahead of Keeping Customers Satisfaction as Top Agenda”.

The event took place on the 27 of April at Lahari Resorts, in Bhanoor, Hyderabad.

India Railways has already begun it’s foray into the world of Semi High Speed Trains via Train 18, Gatimaan Express and Tejas Express.

Agarwal while speaking to the media had said that the introduction of domestically designed Vande Bharat Express (Train 18) is a game changer in the rail transport sector.

India Railways is set to keep the ball rolling with the introduction of Train 19, with a set of sleeper version coaches in the year 2019. He also mentioned that the Production Units of Indian Railways have been teethed to the Industry 4.0 stage and has attained the capacity and skills to design Metro coaches both for domestic and export usage.

In the view of enhancing the comfort of the passenger, several actions have been taken which include the new Quick Watering system. Old coaches have been refurbished under Project Utkrist to bring about a change in the look and tweak the comfort levels as well.

Under Project Utkrist, the Godavari Express Rake has been completely renewed. He also mentioned that the there has been a thrust to improve the cleanliness and hygiene at the railway stations and Indian Railways is trying to fix the Bio-Toilets in a big way which is targeted to cover all coaches by 2019.

He also discussed the need to increase the speed of Intercity trains, and that the conventional coaches were going to be replaced with EMU rakes equipped with Automatic door system.

He announced that the manufacturing of existing standard coaches from ICF was going to be stopped. Indian Railways is also looking at ways to enhance the safety of the customer, and all the existing coaches will be gradually replaced with LHB coaches.

Agarwal stated that the Freight business is the primary source of revenue for India Railways and for optimising utilisation of wagons, a Regional Management System has been introduced which enables all-time availability of Wagons for freight loading.