Titagarh Rail Systems to manufacture aluminium railway coaches entirely in India by FY27

“Earlier, we were importing the flat packs or the subassemblies for these aluminium coaches from Firema from Italy. But now in the last year, we have imported all the machines that are required for making those flat packs within the country. So within this year and the coming year, that is FY27 and beginning of FY28, we will be fully Atmanirbhar or self-sufficient to make aluminium coaches from raw material or from extrusion onwards,” he said.

Chowdhary further said that the company’s growing expertise in aluminium coach manufacturing could open up opportunities in the high-speed rail segment. He noted that high-speed trains across the world are built using aluminium coaches.

“So that will make us fully integrated manufacturers of both aluminium and stainless steel coaches. By the way, world over, high-speed trains are also made in aluminium. That also opens up our opportunity, and that is going to be something that we will definitely be working towards…to be fully prepared and ready to take on the next challenge for Indian infrastructure, which is high-speed trains,” he added.

Indian Railways aluminium coaches

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on March 16, 2022, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that Indian Railways planned to procure 400 next-generation Vande Bharat trainsets with the use of aluminium body coaches.

“IR plans to procure 400 new generation Vande Bharat Train sets with better energy efficiency and passenger riding experience. The use of Aluminium Body coaches in these new generation energy efficient Vande Bharat train sets will also be considered to the extent possible,” he said.