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Santanu Sanyal

A Railways team visits Japan to study the rail system, which is among the best in the world in terms of track construction and maintenance, signalling and communication, tunnelling and container handling.

A team of Railway officers, from the zones and the Railway Board, recently visited Japan to study if the technology available in that country will suit the construction and operation of the dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) planned for India. Japan is also believed to have shown interest in funding, at least partially, the huge DFCs.

The team, it is learnt, visited major cities and split into smaller groups to go to several towns to see the Japanese railway operations. There is no denying that in several fields such as track construction and maintenance, signalling and communication, tunnelling and container handling the Japanese technology is among the best worldwide.

However, there are several critical issues. For example, the Japanese Railways' track record in freight handling is not something to write home about. An estimated 37 million tonnes of freight, representing a meagre 5 per cent of the total freight traffic of the country, is handled by the railways. Some 57 per cent of the country's total freight is handled by roadways, followed by the sea route that handles the remaining 38 per cent.

More important, almost the entire freight traffic handled by the railways is containerised. No wonder, the Japanese Railways is quite efficient in handling containers. However, hardly any bulk traffic, either dry bulk (such as coal and iron ore) or liquid bulk (such as crude and petroleum products) is handled by the railways. As a result, Japan has limited expertise in handling wagons.

This is in sharp contrast to the situation in India. The share of containerised traffic in the total freight traffic moved by the Indian Railways is insignificant. In India, freight movement in wagons is substantial and the Indian Railways has a variety of wagons to handle the different cargo, both bulk and break-bulk.

Does this mean the Japanese technology will be of no use for the proposed DFCs? Not necessarily. The proposed western corridor — from North India to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port — will mainly focus on containerised traffic while the eastern corridor — from Ludhiana to Kolkata — on bulk traffic such as coal, iron and so on.

Locomotives

There is another point. Very high capacity locomotives, of 10,000-11,000 HP, are being planned for transportation of freight rakes along the DFCs. However, such high-capacity locomotives are not manufactured in Japan. Japanese firms manufacture locos of up to 6,000 HP capacity. But it is not known if any country in the world manufactures very high capacity locomotives. This is because in Australia huge freight trains, each a few kilometres long, are hauled across long distances by several locomotives of less than 10,000 HP capacity. One wonders if the Indian Railways will opt for this type of operation if the high capacity locomotives thought of for DFCs are not easily available.

Several other issues also merit careful consideration. For example, in Japan, and for that matter in several other countries, the tracks used by high-speed trains are fenced to keep away "undesirable elements". Neither human beings nor animals can stray onto the tracks. Also, in many countries, level-crossings are avoided by constructing flyovers and underpasses. The purpose of DFCs, that is, running fast freight trains over long distances and at a uniform speed, will not be served unless such measures are adopted. But what is desirable may not always be possible to implement in India. Cost is one factor though there may be other considerations too.

The DFR project is being touted as a showpiece project by the Indian Railways. Perhaps, rightly so. But, then, the pace of work on the DFCs can accelerate only in the right setting.

The SPV (special purpose vehicle) being planned for the implementation of the project is yet to take concrete shape with officials lobbying at various levels for plum posts.

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