Rlys carries 1 bn tonne freight in a year

The achievement amid an evident slump in the overall movement of raw materials lay in mainly two areas — imported coal and heavy haul trains.

Thanks to India’s growing dependence on imported coal,the stock lying at ports kept growing throughout last year throwing a rare opportunity before the Railways to enhance its earnings. In fact,it had already upped its supply of rakes to the overall coal sector. By the end of the financial year,it had managed 223 rakes per day of carrying coal.

As many as 25 heavy haul trains have been introduced by joining two goods trains and attaching three engines to them — one each at both ends and one in the middle. As opposed to the usual 58-wagon trains,heavy haul trains have around 118 wagons in each set. Trials are on to join three goods trains to make one train with approximately 180 wagons that can be driven by a single loco pilot. “The effort was to use the existing infrastructure to carry much more each trip,” said a senior railway official.

Railway Minister P K Bansal on Monday congratulated railway men,Railway Board members and directorates concerned. “The Railways will play the role of India’s engine of growth,” Bansal said.

Under the freight loading strategy,special focus was given to enhancing evacuation of coal from Coal India Ltd and during March 2013,on an average 228 rakes per day were loaded from CIL sources.

Due to increased evacuation of coal by the Railways,Coal India has been able to achieve an off-take of 465 million tonne of coal even though its production was only 452 million tonne in 2012-13.

Increased transportation of coal by the Railways has facilitated building up of coal stocks with thermal power stations in the country to 20 million tonne as on April 1,2013 as against 14.7 million tonne as on April 1,2012.