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To attract high value lighter goods moved in truckloads

Mamuni Das

New Delhi, July 27

The Railways has signed an agreement with Kirloskar Pneumatics for developing road-railers for a pilot project.

Road-railers, also called road trains, are used for inter-modal transport and can run on both roads and rail tracks.

In simple terms, road-railers are semi-trailers equipped with tyres for use on highways and bogies with rail wheels for running directly on the railway tracks.

The truck wheels can be lowered when the railer has to move on road.

When required to move on rail tracks, the truck wheels get pulled up and the road railers are attached to specially designed rail bogies.

Road railers are in use in countries such as Australia, Canada and the US.

This project is being worked with an aim to tap the high value lighter goods which are moved in truckloads and not in trains. “The agreement is for a pilot project, wherein Kirloskar would develop and run a road-railer in about a year,” said Ministry sources.

“Since the road-railer has to ply on roads as well, there will be a load restriction,” said Railway Ministry sources.

The Railways has provided certain level of haulage charges to Kirloskar for moving the road-railers, based on which the firm has to work out the business plan for the product.

The cost element is key to the project because while a rake of wagons costs about Rs 12 crore, the road railers may cost about Rs 25 crore, sources said based on back-of-the envelope calculations.

Kirloskar may need to transfer technology from the Australian or US firms, it is learnt.

Incidentally, Kirloskar had entered into an agreement with the Indian Railways some seven-eight years ago as well and that had expired.

The Railways run roll-on-roll-off service on the Konkan Railway stretch wherein loaded trucks are driven on to the flat wagons of train and then moved to another point where the trucks are driven out.

However, the advantage of using road-railers is that the trailers can be pulled directly behind a loco without requiring any flat wagons.

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