Total rail freight loading in the Hyderabad division of the South Central Railway zone as of December 7, 2020 was up 58 per cent at 1.06 million tonnes (mt) over that of last year.

According to a statement from the South Central Railway, freight loading in Hyderabad Division has shown considerable improvement during the current financial year; it surpassed the previous financial year’s total freight loading of 1.05 mt.

Gajanan Mallya, General Manager, South Central Railway, has advised the officials to sustain this momentum and attract additional traffic toward the Railways by being in regular touch with freight customers to boost their confidence in the Railways.

Reduction in passenger train services, improved track maintenance as well as continuous monitoring have helped enhance the average speed of freight trains to 50 kmph from the previous year’s average speed of 27 kmph.

In addition, the continuous marketing efforts by the newly-formed Business Development Units and various freight concessions and incentive schemes introduced for the benefit of freight customers have helped improve the existing loading as well as capturing new traffic.

During the year, new traffic was contributed by iron ore and quartz chips from Veldurti station, maize from Nizamabad station and boiled rice from Kaukuntla. For the first time, turmeric was loaded from Nizamabad in Telangana to be transported to Bangladesh.

Foodgrain movement has also increased to 0.847 mt, almost double that of the previous year corresponding period figure of 0.435 mt.

A new private freight terminal has been made operational at Kaukuntla, from where rice was transported exclusively to Southern states. Facilitating the freight customers for loading in mini rakes (20 wagons instead of the full rake of 40 wagons) helped enhance traffic in maize. Loading of iron ore and stone chips to major destinations like Macheri Road, Kharagpur and JSW Steel, Hubli, added to volumes.

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