The Hindu Business Line : New route to haul freight

THE network of roads planned to be built under the aegis of the National Highway Authority had taken a page from the existing Golden Quadrilateral of the Indian Railways. The Railways now plans to replicate the NHAI initiative by setting up freight corridors exclusively to carry goods, a traffic it has been steadily losing to the road sector over the last half century. That over the last decade-and-a-half the chair of the Minister for Railways has been occupied by a string of political heavyweights out to gain popularity at the cost of the efficient working of this 1.7 million-strong behemoth has not helped much either.

At the recently concluded seminar at National Rail Museum in Delhi, organised by the Institute of Rolling Stock Engineers on this subject, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, spoke of a variety of options he wanted to consider in giving the project final shape, including drawing heavily on experts in rail transport.

Taking a cue from the success story of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) he appears to be quite determined to keep the project out of the hands of the railway bureaucracy and its proneness to succumb to political influence. Indications are that he may opt for a special purpose vehicle with equal partnership of the PSUs, ports and, of course, the Railways, into whose pool of experienced managers the project is expected to dip heavily. Possible funding from an external agency such as JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) would mean it will have a major say in how the money will be spent, including choice of consultants for looking at possible alignments, choice of the traction, rolling stock, signalling and train control system.

It promises to be a whole new ball-game, and the seminar had almost all the major players vying with each other to establish the superiority of their wares in varied fields.

While a consultant to World Bank gave his view of what factors should be taken into account for the new freight corridors, representatives of the big two locomotive manufacturers — the Electromotive Division of General Motors, and General Electric — extolled the virtues of their respective new generation of 6,000 hp diesel locomotives and how each had an edge over the equivalent capacity electric locomotives.

Perhaps the most significant gain with the new freight corridors would be overcoming the constraints imposed by electrification of the present trunk routes where the catenary, or the overhead wires, do not permit running double-stack containers, or similar large consignments such as multi level car carriers, which haul nearly 70 per cent of new automobiles made in the US from the factories direct to the markets.

Both these modes of rail transport yield considerable cost savings in US and have made rail a preferred mode of transport. Reportedly, realising this constraint, the catenary is planned to be removed on certain sections of the European Railways to enable such double-stack containers being run and to make rail transport a highly cost-effective mode of transport.

While the ports on the west coast now have a major share of the container traffic — almost 4 million TEUs, with the southern ports carrying about 1.5 million TEUs and the east coast ports coming a poor third, with only 8 million TEUs, Sharat Mishra, felt that in about 7-8 years, this should grow to 9, 2.0 and 4.0 million TEUs respectively. Understandably the ports on the East coast hold a lot of promise for growth The size of rolling stock, its speed and relative stability on the track is highly dependent on the width of the track — the gauge track. It turns out that one of the wisest decisions made when the Railways began in India nearly 150 years ago was perhaps the adoption of the Broad or the 5'-6" (1676 mms ) gauge as the norm for major trunk routes.

Adopted by Spain as early as in 1846, and later by Chile in 1851, the credit for this gauge being introduced in India, even though the British Railways had been laid to the Standard gauge of 1435 mm, perhaps goes to Mr Simms, the Consulting Engineer.

He strongly recommended that a much wider gauge than the `Standard' should be adopted in view of the gale force winds encountered during the monsoons on the West coast. Wider gauge would enable a lower centre of gravity which, in turn, would ensure higher levels of stability and safer running. Fired with a zeal for introducing a Railway system in India that should not fail under any circumstances, whether it was for poor standards of construction or inefficient operations, Lord Dalhousie, as the Governor-General in 1850, while agreeing with Simm's recommendations, went a step further and wanted to play it safe with a wider gauge of a 6", though ultimately the 5-6" gauge was adopted!

However, for some curious reasons the load gauge, or the maximum moving dimension to which the rolling stock could be made, and the superstructures such as the over-bridge, etc., did not make full use of this wider gauge and were restricted somewhat closer to the British profile for the standard-gauge rolling stock.

Perhaps as a Crown colony, British goods could be given a preferential treatment for imports into India, and with a large number of companies getting into the act to build a new Railway it made sense to keep the potentially rich market captive. As a result the maximum height was restricted to only 3.8 m and the width kept at 3 m. With the new freight corridors this constraint is expected to be removed, and the running of 7.1m high and 3m wide loads of triple-stack car-carriers, like in the US, could soon become a reality.

A much more important gain would be in axle loads, currently restricted to 22.9 tonnes, while railways in Australia with only a standard gauge of 1435 mm, carry an axle load of 40 tonnes with a payload-to-tare ratio of 6.4 — almost twice Indian Railway's 3.4. Australia also appears to have perfected the art of heavy haul with routine running of 10,000-tonne trains hauled by multiple diesel locomotives, thundering on passing loops without having to stop for crossing on single-line sections and achieving record throughputs. The higher load-to-tare ratio also makes running of empty rakes that much more economical, an important factor when streams dedicated to iron ore, limestone, coal and other special commodities are involved.

For once, the empty sand dunes of Rajasthan would prove a boon for connecting major areas of production in the north to the western ports, as the crow flies, would be not only the best but also least costly option for an alignment which would simply bypass inhabited areas.

Exciting days are ahead for rail transportation which, as a highly cost-effective mode, can reach all varieties of freight to their destinations, cheap, fast, safe, and on schedule.

(The author is a Former Member (Mechanical), Railway Board. He can be contacted at acharya@bol.net.in)