Germany eyes India’s help for freight route

The Railways may still be struggling to begin actual construction work on ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor...

The Railways may still be struggling to begin actual construction work on ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project but the idea is already attracting attention worldwide.

Germany is looking to gain from India’s experience in setting up similar railway lines to cater exclusively to freight traffic. “Freight transport in Germany is expected to triple in the next 10-15 years. We will require special railway corridors to move that freight. India is much ahead in planning for the dedicated freight corridor while we have just realised a need for it. We could learn a lot from India,” said Rainer Lingenthal, spokesman for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs.

The Indian Railways’ DFC is essentially envisaged to provide exclusive tracks for freight movement, keeping the railway tracks as away from populated areas as possible. The Germans, with similar objectives, are looking to learn from how the Indian Railways goes about setting up a project with such huge dimensions.

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Germany is planning to set up dedicated freight railway lines — around 900 km on the North-South and 700 km on the East-West routes. Germany’s State Secretary for Transport, Building and Urban Affairs Dr Engelbert Lutke Daldrup on Wednesday met Railway Board Chairman K C Jena and discussed possibilities of cooperation between the railway of two countries.

“We talked about possibilities of German investments in the freight corridors being set up by the Indian Railways,” Daldrup told The Indian Express.

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