The Hindu Business Line : Long battle ahead for UN Asian railway project

New Delhi March 19 Even as India has decided to join the UN project envisaging a large rail network across South East Asia, Asia and Europe (Trans Asian Railway), getting it up and running would be a fairly difficult task, say railway experts.

One of the biggest impediments could the lack of any dedicated international funding for the building some missing links and harmonising the network — which may work out to be very expensive since they are in difficult terrain. Additionally, issues like relationship between various countries along the track, priorities of those countries in terms of trade and railways, and technical interoperability parameters, need to be addressed first before the network can be operationalised, point out railway experts who have participated in TAR meetings earlier.

RELATIONSHIPS

Some segments of the TAR where contiguous countries along the rail link have amicable relationship may get operational relatively early, explains an official. With railways from countries like Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey forming a part of the North-South corridor of TAR, an amicable relationship between all these countries would be very important.

Since the rail route has a focus on moving containers, cargo clearance at the border of any two countries should not delay the rail movement, he said.

FUNDING:

Each country would have to fund its own expenses for building the missing links of the identified route or taking steps to harmonise its railway systems with the neighbouring country. Thus, given the economic needs of the country, it may not prioritise investments in the required link if there are no immediate benefits.

DIFFERENT GAUGE

Since the mainline railway networks making up the TAR network have five different track gauges (1.676 metre, 1.52 m, 1.435 m, 1.067 m and 1 m), moving trains across different gauges have to be done fast so that they do not delay the transportation time. Whenever there are different gauges, there are options like transhipment (transferring boxes mechanically from wagons of one gauge to wagons of another gauge), changing bogies (wagons are lifted with jacks and bogies of one gauge rolled out and bogies of the other gauge rolled in), amongst others.

OTHER ISSUES

Different countries may have different signalling systems, and they have to be harmonised; visa issues of the train drivers and other train operating staff have to be taken care of. "For offering such cross-country logistic services, we also need container operators with the wherewithal and tie-ups," said an official.

PILOT RUN

However, while the project may take long, it is not impossible. Between November 2003-July 2004, some railways did operate four demonstration runs of container trains: from the port of Tianjin (China) to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), from the port of Lianyungang (China) to Almaty (Kazakhstan), from Brest (Belarus) to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), and from the port of Nakhodka (Russian Federation) to Malacewicze (Poland), according to the UN.

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