Indian Railways News

[sob]

For a long time one of the most coveted posts in the Indian Cabinet has been the Railway Minister's post. This is one post where the most poppulous decisions can be made without any thought to the condition of the exchequesr, the travelling condition of the current travellers, the current condition of the rolling stock, the antiquated signalling system and the condition of the tracks.

The only thing certain about a Railway Minister is that every year he/she will announce dozens of new trains( mostly from his constituency-- to hell with the rest of the country)ozens of new projects. Come the next budget similar annoucements will be made but there will be no mention of the status of the projects announced in the previous years.

Admittedly IR is doing a Yeoman's job in transporting millions of people everyday at comparitively very cheap prices. But is this the only job of the railways. New Technologies have been absorbed very slowly. The growth in Number of Kilometers of Track has been very slow. Parts of India, J&K, North East and some parts of South India are still very poorly connected by Trains.

More people die on unmanned crossings daily than they die in Railway crashes. After thousands of such crashes, dozens of expert committees, crores of Rupees spent the situation is still the same.

 

[sob]

Analysis of the mess

Off the rails

Indian Railways (IR) must learn that there are important issues to be addressed, not the least of them being rail safety and security. The image of a major train being held to ransom by a bow and arrow-wielding crowd is fresh in everyone’s mind. There are other concerns which cry out for attention. Rail Bhavan needs a mantri who can spend more time in the office, remain focused on important rail-related matters and, in fact, function almost like a chief executive.
While IR has hurtled along, sometimes with some success, a prolonged drought of proper leadership has sapped its vitality and wasted its potential. Far from functioning as a bulwark of the country’s transport infrastructure, it is nowhere even in the reckoning even regionally for technology, productivity and connectivity. Chinese Railways (CR) lagged IR as recently as a quarter-century; but it has surged far in network expansion, freight and passenger output, high-speed passenger services and heavy-haul freight corridors, enviable productivity levels and state-of-the-art technologies. IR, in comparison, remains content and smug with peripherals — flagging off “only ladies” or “Duronto” trains, Izzat passes and Yuva travels.

Every Railways minister is obsessed by new passenger trains. Not that passenger traffic per se is a bad bargain for railways: of the US$ 313 billion rail transport market, 57 per cent was passenger, and 43 per cent freight in 2005. But Duronto-style initiatives only exacerbate capacity constraints on the already clogged inter-megacity rail corridors and strain the availability of coaches as well as terminal and maintenance facilities.

Safety, security, productivity on the system are all intertwined, a matter of managerial efficiency and good governance. Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani being stopped by agitators near Jhargram is symptomatic of a deep malaise, manifest in petty politics and a soft state apparatus. IR has to embrace a zero-failure regime for infrastructure and equipment, and provide for safeguards against human failure. Two particular weak spots have been level crossings and train-drivers’ lapses, responsible for several accidents. For decades, IR has harped on systemic solutions. How does the Railway Board explain its prevarication in getting the anti-collision device installed even after its introduction in the Northeast Frontier zone?

The writer was the first MD of the Container Corporation of India

 

[sob]

12 people run over by train in Haryana

Twelve people, including six railway employees, were run over by trains in two separate accidents in Haryana on Tuesday.

The day began on a tragic note when six persons came under the speeding Ajmer-bound Shatabdi Express near the Pataudi station at 7.30 a.m. while crossing the track, triggering protests by locals who surrounded the train demanding compensation.

In less than 12 hours, a similar incident stuck six gangmen returning from duty when they were run over by an EMU between Asaoti and Ballabgarh at 6.20 p.m., 40 km from Delhi. — PTI

The Hindu : Front Page : 12 people run over by train in Haryana

 

[RPK]

Railways to track trains through satellite

Railways to track trains through satellite

The railways on Thursday approved a scheme to track trains through satellite with the twin objective of keeping passengers informed about train movement and reaching information technology to villages.

The scheme was approved after a meeting between Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and chairman of the Expert Committee on Information and Communications Technology Sam Pitroda, who maintained that the project had immense potential to increase the scope of e-governance and link villages with computers.

Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur and Impex Infotech Limited will design the Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (SIMRAN) system together.

The system will provide passengers travelling in the train information regarding its current location, speed, next destination, and approximate time to next destination.

The information will also be displayed on the station’s enquiry display board and be available with the person attending telephone enquiry for passengers who stand harassed for want of information about the delay in arrival and departure. Anyone can avail of this information through Short Message Service (SMS).

Moreover, the railways intend to earn revenue through advertisements and other entertainment on display boards inside coaches.

The railways currently have a network of 50,000 km long optical fibre and plan an addition 15,000 km. It uses only 10 percent of the laid capacity and intends to put the rest to good use with the help of satellite.

 

[Ashoka]

The journey of Indian Railways never ceases to amaze me. Not too many years ago, I was a kid traveling by Railways with my parents & I still remember the pathetic condition then. Dirty bogies, unhygienic washrooms, arrogant TC etc. And when I see the condition today, it is no less than a miracle. The focus has shifted to the end customer, treating them as ‘clients’ & Railways is striving hard to achieve client satisfaction. And IRCTC website is probably the best I have ever seen, considering that millions of people visit that daily. The feature mentioned above is just another feather in the cap.

However, I do wish to see those bullet trains running all over India. The speed has not improved much in these years & continues to be at a substandard level. I wish to see a speed of at least 150 km/hr for a normal train in coming future.

 

[sandeepdg]

This is a very interesting development. It will go a long way in increasing passenger convenience, especially on thelong distance train routes. Hope the railways and Isro keep up the good work !

 

[sob]

Homework for Mamta

Finally it seems that the Prime Minister has had to remind to Mamta Banerjee that she is the Railway Minister and not the Shadow CM of West Bengal.

Due to the politics involved successive Railway Ministers have treated it as tool to further their political careers. Railways have been moving without any direction for so many years. PMO's office has now asked the Railway Minster and the Railway Board for a status report on Indian Railways. Knowing Mamta she will fight hard to preven any step that she percieves will be unpopular with the common man, and ultimately harm her image.

Truant Mamata gets Rly homework from PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, gently, turned the heat on absentee Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, asking her for a status report on the Railways in a fortnight.

Forwarding a note by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on an assessment of the problems at Indian Railways and suggestions for a turnaround, Singh’s attempt seems to be two-fold: one, to prod Banerjee to give time to her Ministry and two, to get things moving in the Railways, so crucial to the country’s double-digit growth ambitions.

The Plan panel’s eight-page note — a copy of which is with The Sunday Express— gives a quick summary of the malaise at the Railways. But since most of this is generally known, the purpose of the note seems more to drive home the urgency to act than to educate Banerjee on Railways problems. Stating that planning at Railways is not guided by a vision, the note calls for fundamental reforms including institutional restructuring.

While an independent commission may be appointed to submit a report just ahead of the next general election on structural reforms, some immediate steps that could be announced in the Budget for the next fiscal include: a minimum 10-15 per cent hike in second class passenger fare, no increase in freight, indexation of fares to increase in fuel costs, bids for diesel and electric locomotive factories by year end, laying unviable lines only if states chip in with 50 per cent share and planning for high-speed passenger train services.

A government official said, “The Prime Minister has requested a discussion with the Rail Minister and Chairman, Railway Board, after the ministry has formulated its views and suggestions on the Plan panel’s note.” But, he fears, the status report that Banerjee prepares will not be without references to the performance of the Railways under Lalu Prasad.

Drawing a parallel with China, the Plan panel said that between 1990 and 2007, Indian Railways added only about 960 km while China added 20,000 km. China plans to add another 40,000 km in the next 10 years while India is currently doing around 250-300 km a year. “There can be no doubt that we should aim at adding 1,000 km a year for the next 10-12 years totaling 10,000 km of additional route length,” it said.

The Plan panel has said that technology modernization has been slow since Railways itself produces much of its rolling stock. “Separating production units from the railways, which the Chinese have done, would have put much more pressure to modernize,” it said.

 

[sob]

Mounting Pressure on Mamta

With the recent spate of accidents in the IR, the pressure seems to be mounting on Mamta Banerjee. With her continued absentism from the Cabinet meetings, she has even missed cabinet meeting where the Agenda was on india Railways.

She is only focussed on the 2011 elections in West Bengal and as a result many vital decisions are pending in the ministry. It is high time that the PM pulls her up and makes her accountable for the ministry she is running today, and not the perceived CMs chair that she is day dreaming about.

Rail mishaps mount heat on `absent' Mamata

IF HER long absences from Delhi were already the talk of the town, the sudden spate of train accidents recently may further push Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on the backfoot.
There have been six railway accidents, including two major ones that killed 29 people, in the past 40 days.
As vital decisions and appointments to plug holes in rail safety remain pending, her detractors are calling it a clear case of "an engine running without a driver".

Mamata's six-month tenure in the Railways is also drawing comparisons, unfair as she may call them, with predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav's. "One thing that Lalu can genuinely claim credit for is the fact that railway accidents saw a massive decline during his five years at the helm of Railways," a Rail Bhavan official said.

Data with The Indian Express shows that the number of railway accidents (collisions, derailments, levelcrossing accidents, fire and miscellaneous) during Lalu's term (2004-09) came down to 1,034, almost half of the 2,027 accidents in the five previous years. Incidentally, Mamata had been Railway Minister for a brief while during that time.

While the Trinamool Congress chief has lost no time announcing compensation to victims of these accidents, instituting inquiries and directing senior officials from Delhi to rush to the accident sites, questions are being raised about her failure to take steps to prevent such incidents.

Close to 90,000 posts of personnel key to ensuring rail safety have been hanging fire for months. With so many posts of gangmen, pointsmen, signalmen and assistant station masters lying vacant, it means there is a huge lack of "foot-soldiers" to patrol railway tracks spread over 63,000-plus kilometres across the country. Accidents in Mamata term NOVEMBER 14: 15 coaches of Jodhpur-Delhi Mandor Superfast Express derail near Jaipur, killing 7 people NOVEMBER 13: 5 coaches of CST-Kasara suburban train derail at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, injuring 2 passengers NOVEMBER 11: 8 coaches of Mysore-Ajmer Express derail at Jejuri near Pune, 6 injured NOVEMBER 5: 11 coaches of Gandhidham-Bengaluru Express derail near Bhiwandi in district Thane, 4 passengers injured OCTOBER 20: 22 persons killed and an equal number injured after Goa Express rams into a stationary Mewar Express from behind near Mathura OCTOBER 7: One passenger killed and 40 injured when the locomotive and three coaches of Amrapali Express derail near Naugachia in Bhagalpur district

Rail mishaps mount heat on `absent' Mamata

 

[sob]

The list of forgotten projects by the Railways has no end. The latest to come to light is the Rail Terminal Project at Sankrail West Bengal. Here 700 acres of land was forcibly occupied by the Govt. in 1981 but after 28 years the land lies barren with just a small shed build by the Railways.

LAND ACQUISITION - Bengal villagers wait for rail terminal continues 28 yrs on

Even as the Union railway ministry prepares to take over at least 900 acres of troubled land in Singur in West Bengal s Hooghly district to build a coach factory, farmers in Sankrail, some 50km away, from whom 700 acres of land was forcibly acquired in 1981, wait for the railways to honour its commitment to build a goods terminal there, employing at least one person from each of the 500 displaced families.
Sankrail in Howrah district is closer to Kolkata than Singur. The 700-acre plot is a few minutes walk from the National Highway 6, and there are at least two railway stations within 2km of Sankrail. There was no political resistance to the proposed project there, but the railway ministry seems to have forgotten Sankrail and the commitments it had made to the local people 28 years ago when the land was acquired.

Today the plot lies vacant.The railways has only built a small shed, which is used once or twice a month by private companies to park or for emptying wagons, according to locals.

Around 50km away in Singur, where Tata Motors Ltd had almost finished building its small-car factory, the railway ministry wants to set up a coach manufacturing facility despite legal complexities arising from railway minister Mamata Banerjee s stance on forcible land acquisition in Singur.

The Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress West Bengal s main opposition party, which protested the land acquisition and forced Tata Motors to move its small-car factory from Singur a little over a year ago maintains that 400 acres of land must be returned to farmers who did not agree to sell land.

Returning land wouldn t be easy and could lead to legal wrangling between the state and the erstwhile owners of the acquired plot, according to state government officials.

What is more, the state hasn t yet terminated the lease agreements with Tata Motors or any of its component suppliers, said a state government official, who did not want to be identified. So the coach factory in Singur, if at all it materializes, is years away.

Banerjee was extremely vocal in Parliament and outside it about the still-born Sankrail project when Laloo Prasad was the railway minister, recall locals, but now Sankrail doesn t feature in the long list of things that she has promised to do in and for her home state, alleges Ajoy Bar, a member of Sankrail gram panchayat, or village council.

In fact, recently she was to visit Sankrail and address the people here on her way to Shalimar railway yard, only 12km away, but she changed her plan in the 11th hour and didn t turn up at all, he added.

In 1981, the local people sold their land for the goods terminal project for as little as Rs4,000 a bigha, which is onethird of an acre; the current price is around Rs40 lakh a bigha. Yet, we gave our land because the railways had promised to offer job to at least one person in each affected family, said Ganesh Chandra Bar, who sold close to two acres of land.

Bar, 70, now works as a security guard at the small railway shed at Sankrail when it has a wagon parked inside, earning Rs60 a day. The shed isn t used more than a couple of times a month, whereas what the railways had promised was one of the biggest goods terminals in the country, he added.

Spokespersons for the railways, both in Delhi and Kolkata, refused to comment on the Sankrail project.

Let down by Banerjee, the residents of Sankrail have formed a forum to pressure the railways to immediately start construction of the proposed terminal. The forum, which isn t affiliated to any political party, has been petitioning key government officials seeking intervention, and has even written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Ambika Banerjee, local Trinamool Congress leader and member of Parliament from Howrah, said he had discussed the Sankrail goods terminal with the railway minister. We are trying to figure out what could be done Our minister is abreast of the situation.
However, I wouldn t be able to comment on why nothing has been done for so many years.

 

[sob]

Our beloved Railway Minister sure knows how to keep the media glare on her. In her latest attempt she has brought out a white paper on the IR during the last 5 years when Lalu P Yadav was the Ralway minister.

NOt surprisingly the white paper is quite critical of the functioning of the IR under Lalu but also doubts have been cast over the accounting practices followed.

Mamata dismisses Lalu Prasad's claims on Indian Railways' turnaround

Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today hit her predecessor Lalu Prasad where it hurt him most—on the supposed turnaround of Indian Railways during Prasad’s regime.

She not only brought out various loopholes in the claims of growth of the railways, but a White Paper on the performance of Indian Railways released by her today also said: “There were two accounting changes during the last five years (Prasad’s tenure). These have contributed significantly in inflating the figures of ‘cash surplus before dividend’.”

Banerjee’s White Paper also said there are certain “inadequacies and weaknesses” in the existing accounting system and showed if some changes were made, how the cash surpluses shown during Prasad’s regime would actually be much less.

Banerjee even gave examples of Communist-led China to show that how Indian Railway during Prasad’s regime lagged behind. The White Paper says while the average new line was 222 km per year during Prasad’s tenure, China laid new lines adding up to 1000 km per year during the same period.

An anxious Congress leadership had already asked Banerjee not to get involved in witch-hunting. She was told the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was an extension of the first UPA where Prasad was the Rail Minister and that if Prasad was indicted it would be an embarrassment for the first Manmohan Singh government as a whole. Banerjee did not get the report approved in the cabinet and perhaps wanted to place it directly on the table of the House. But this morning, a top official from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) called up Banerjee and she had to ‘clear’ the White Paper with the Prime Minister’s Office before releasing it to newspapers. A White Paper is an authoritative government account of an event or a ministry. Cabinet has to mandatorily clear it.

Banerjee’s report concluded, “The best period for Indian Railways financially in the last two decades was not the last five years, but the period 1991-96”(when CK Jaffer Sharief was Railway Minister). This has irked Prasad the most among other issues of the White Paper.

“Why did the Railway Minister skipped the interim period when Nitish Kumar and she herself were the Railway Minister? If you say Jaffar Sharif performed best as railway Minister, then you must also explain how the condition of the Railways deteriorated in the next few years. Why didn’t the report mention the dismal status of the Indian Railway which I inherited when I became the Railway Minister,” Prasad fumed.

Just as Banerjee didn’t mention Prasad’s name even once in the entire White Paper, Prasad too, refrained blaming Banerjee directly. “She has been misled by her officers. They tried to finish my image as the Railway Minister. While Nitish Kumar and Banerjee (in her earlier tenure) had to regularly ask for money from the Finance Minister, I gave dividend to the government,” said Prasad hours after Banerjee laid the paper in the Parliament.

Banerjee refrained from making any comment and she said, “this is not the first time a White Paper has been tabled. I don’t want to make any political statements.”

Significantly, Prasad spent almost an hour with Banerjee on Thursday and today he gain met Banerjee before the White Paper was placed. The attack on Prasad comes at a time when he is keen to mend the bridge with the Congress and Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress chief, enjoys a good rapport with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. To confidants, Prasad dubbed the White Paper as an effort to politically isolate him.

 

[Pintu]

Lalu squirms as white paper drills holes in his claims - India - The Times of India

Lalu squirms as white paper drills holes in his claims
TNN 19 December 2009, 02:42am IST

NEW DELHI: The courtesy was cold comfort for the blow that followed. Just after Lok Sabha met on Friday morning, a call went out to RJD leader Lalu Prasad and his close aide Prem Chand Gupta that the white paper on railways was being tabled in the House.

The RJD boss hardly needed to put his thinking cap on to figure out what was in store. The call from PMO was a prelude to a scathing attack on Lalu's five years as railway minister during UPA-1, a harsh indictment of his carefully scripted "turnaround" story and which punched a hole in his attempts to present himself as pro-development.

The warning may have been meant to help Lalu brace for the shock but the political implications of the savaging of his record in office
were soon being discussed avidly. Even though Congress managers tried to argue that it was railway minister Mamata Banerjee's "prerogative" to present a white paper, the ruling camp's endorsement was evident enough.

Some felt that Banerjee's move to virtually demolish her predecessor was intended to ensure that the "mess" in railway finances did not stick to her. Soon after she took charge, it had been suggested to her that the turnaround story was bound to come unstuck as the economic buoyancy that drove freight and passenger earnings had slackened while wear and tear in railway stock took its toll.

Speaking to the media, Lalu did note that the white paper was a bid to "hack me down so that someone else looks a lot taller", perhaps an oblique acknowledgement of his successor's gameplan.

It was also felt Banerjee was wary of Lalu campaigning for the Left against her in the West Bengal elections. But the unspoken complicity of the Congress seemed to be in keeping with the party's bid to jettison the luggage of UPA-1 and regain its standing in Bihar, as it had in UP. Congress was not prepared to do deals with regional players if it could help it.

With Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's "line" to part ways with Samajwadi Party and RJD paying off, the government could look to disown what was a part of its own legacy. Despite having been happy to ride on the railway "miracle", the UPA leader switched track to ruthlessly target Lalu.

Though he sought to manfully face the onslaught, Lalu looked a little worse for the wear as he spent nearly an hour at Parliament's main gate explaining his position on the white paper. In what must have been an effort for him, he resisted lashing out, saying he was sure that "Mamata didi" had been misled. He claimed that it was his decision to pay bonus to railway employees that led to a better deal for central government staff.

He was clearly pitching his hopes on the Jharkhand Assembly results, maintaining RJD would get 10-12 seats and that "there is no getting away from the era of coalitions." Even as he was down, Lalu was not totally out, as flashes of the old spirit returned as he denounced attempts to "photo finish" him and grandly said he was not being "hard-hitting" in his comments.

What would worry the Bihar strongman is that if the white paper is a statement of UPA-2's political intent, Congress may well spurn a post-poll tie-up with him in Jharkhand. Then the fat will really be in the fire.

 

[Pintu]

Hindu news link :

The Hindu : Front Page : Anand Vihar railway terminal opens

Regards

 

[Pintu]

Railways report hints at ?catering scam? - India - The Times of India

Railways report hints at ‘catering scam’
Mahendra Kumar Singh, TNN 19 December 2009, 04:32am IST

NEW DELHI: The white paper on railways, presented in the Lok Sabha on Friday, refers to Lalu’s claims as the ‘‘so-called turnaround’’. It even hints at a ‘‘catering scam’’ during the RJD chief’s tenure and recommends a comprehensive review. A more direct reference was avoided due to a senior Congress leader intervening with Banerjee. ‘‘There are issues regarding cornering of catering licences by a few operators,’’ the report says. There is, however, no reference to irregularities in jobs.

The document might also prove ticklish for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had earlier endorsed Lalu’s turnaround theory. But with the odds in politics often stacked against the loser, the RJD boss found himself under the scanner on Friday as the white paper even attacked him for hiking rail fares through the back door.

The report is a hard blow on Lalu’s bid to recast himself as pro-development and shake off the image of being Bihar’s nemesis. Predictably, the paper saw his rival, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, describe Lalu as the ‘‘greatest juggler of figures’’. Denting Lalu’s ‘‘railways for aam admi claims’’, the paper said, ‘‘The catering policy in recent years focused on revenue generation and services to upper class passengers losing sight of common passengers who constitute more than 95% of the travelling public.’’

The report also said excessive money was charged for schemes such as ‘tatkal’, putting common people to hardship even as punctuality took a beating during the period.

 

[Pintu]

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Nation | Mamata rips Lalu rail math

Mamata rips Lalu rail math
- White paper shows ‘inflated’ surplus

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, Dec. 18: Mamata Banerjee today tabled a white paper on the railways that rejected Lalu Prasad’s claims of a turnaround during his tenure as minister, say- ing the accounts were tweaked to show “inflated” sur- pluses.

A concept of cash surplus before dividend payments was introduced to make the numbers “look good”, the paper, presented in the Lok Sabha, said.

“If these presentation changes had not been done, the accumulated surplus of Rs 89,000 crore during the five-year period (from 2004- 05 to 2008-09) would come down to Rs 39,500 crore,” the report said, triggering protests from MPs of Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

The railways’ performance was “below par” in the five years, the paper said, adding that the best period financially in the past 20 years was 1991-96.

The Congress’s C.K. Jaffer Sharief was minister then.

Lalu Prasad, present in the House, denounced the dossier as “a black paper and no paper at all”.

“My tenure was the best period and there was no dispute on my earnings… some officers appear to have misled Mamata Banerjee and she should find out who they are,” the RJD chief said.

Mamata refused to be drawn into the war of words, telling reporters later: “I will say nothing against anybody.”

Lalu Prasad’s rival in Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar, said the document had “exposed the hoax behind the turnaround claims”.

“The white paper has proved Lalu Prasad was resorting to white lies in the context of the railways’ profit,” Nitish said in Patna.

Rail officials said the surplus numbers presented during Lalu Prasad’s tenure also did not take into account arrears paid to staff under the Sixth Pay Commi- ssion proposals. If it had, the surplus would have come down further, they added.

Former railway officials appeared to agree with the paper’s conclusions.

“(Accounting) norms must be changed in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Obviously, no such change was approved (by the CAG),” former Railway Board chairman J.P. Batra said.

Officials said the changes aimed at presenting a rosier set of numbers were made from 2007-08 to impress international lenders and get loans for projects like the freight corridor.

The turnaround claims had prompted B-schools like Harvard Business School and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and industry chambers to laud Lalu Prasad as a new-age guru.

 

[anoop_mig25]

why don`t our railway starts exporting railway engines/wagons.this manufacturing units must be separated and privatized or semi - privatized so that tey can be that at lest exported to saarc countries,african countries.indian raiways should be divided int two parts one running the railways and maintaining it while other which should be privatized or psu engaged in manufacturing and exporting engines,wagons,technology

 

[sob]

why don`t our railway starts exporting railway engines/wagons.this manufacturing units must be separated and privatized or semi - privatized so that tey can be that at lest exported to saarc countries,african countries.indian raiways should be divided int two parts one running the railways and maintaining it while other which should be privatized or psu engaged in manufacturing and exporting engines,wagons,technology

Some small export orders have been there. One of the railway organistaions RITES has been involved in turnkey projects. But the biggest problem aprt from being a PSU is that the IR has standardised Broad Gauge as a standard in place of the standard gaige which is used by most of the countries in the world. This does rule out major export oppurtunities.

Under the former Raliway minister there was a tender for Orivate companies to set up one factory each for manufacturing Diesel engines and the other for Electric locos. With the new despensation we do not know what has happened to the tender and whther it has any future.

 

[sob]

Rail gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the heads of the two parallel rails that make up a single railway line.

Most of the world uses Standard Gauge which is around 1.4 mtrs.

Broad gauge which is used in india Pakistan is 1.67 mtrs

In India some of the old train lines, in Rajasthan and the Darjeeling line is almost 1 mtr. and is also called meter gauge.

 

[Pintu]

http://www.ptinews.com/news/446771_Mamata-wants-Railway-employees-against-delaying-trains

Mamata wants Railway employees against delaying trains

STAFF WRITER 20:24 HRS IST

Howrah, Dec 30 (PTI) Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today warned a section of railway staff against delaying of trains out of political motivation, saying their action would bring a bad name to the Railways and affect business.

"To me humanism is more important than politics. You may subscribe to any (political) colour, but do not delay trains out of political motivation," she told the employees while flagging off six trains from here.

Banerjee said she had received complaints that empty rakes going to the yard from the platforms were delayed on purpose, thereby affecting the movement of other trains.

"I am proud of my Railway family. I appeal to them to extend cooperation to the passengers. If trains are delayed, it will bring a bad name to your department and in turn to the railways. This will affect business," she said.

 

[anoop_mig25]

high speed trains

i want to ask a question?
Does india needs high speed trains?
Recently china started started high speed train between 2 of it`s important region and there is news that 42 other lines are going to start by next 3 years .Basically china is connecting it`s more economically advance southern region with central parts. its like creating link between mumbai and pune because of which people living in pune have daily jobs in mumbai .is like that?

for more on china high speed train read below article
http://http://www.indianexpress.com/news/worlds-fastest-train-link-starts-in-china/559455/

 

[tarunraju]

Yes, India needs high(er) speed trains. A WAP-4 class electric-traction locomotive has lower carbon footprint than a Boeing 737 when hauling an 18-coach rake across the same distance, and carries way more passengers. There's certainly more scope for ≥150 km/h services on our trunk lines, as new LHB-made coaches, as well as WAP-4, WAP-5, WDP-4 locomotives all support ≥150 km/h speeds. I guess it's just the rail traffic that keeps them down to their current 110 km/h speeds. A "SuperFast Express" was intended to be 150 km/h.