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"Railway Bridge on Bhore Ghaut," showing the construction of the Bhor Ghat incline, which was conceived by George Clark, Chief Engineer of Bombay in the East India Company government.
Chennai: Can container trucks run on railway tracks? From December this year, Southern Railway plans to implement this concept, which is an amphibian-machine known as road-railer, on a pilot basis to transport cargo from Chennai to Delhi. This is a fresh initiative being implemented to give a boost to the freight-earning potential of Indian Railways and capture the lost market from road transport.
Explaning the concept, a senior railway official said the cargo-containers can be brought by road on trucks from a godown and directly coupled with the railway bogies at the railway terminal without having to unload them. At the destination, these containers can be mechanically de-coupled and driven away by a truck.
This concept, already in use in foreign countries like the USA, has been developed by the private sector engineering conglomerate Kirloskar and was in the proposal stage for more than a decade, said sources in Southern Railway. This is one of the latest schemes of Indian Railways to give a boost to the freight traffic and give a stiff competition to movement through road transport, the source said.
"This process is much faster and goods packed at the godown can be directly delivered to the customer's destination. The total process of trans-shipment, where containers are brought to the freight terminal and then again re-loaded onto the railway wagons, is totally eliminated in the road-railer," the official said.
The railways now manually lift the containers from trucks by using huge cranes and other heavy equipment. For this, significant manpower has to be deputed and the process is time-consuming. The concept of road-railer aims to facilitate faster movement of goods; many freight-customers of the railways have complained about the slow movement of cargo through trains and damage to goods as well. Under the new concept, the railways will need to invest less as freight terminals will not need heavy equipment, the official added.
Each road-railer rake can have a maximum of 50 wagons, each of which can carry 40 tonnes of cargo, the official said.
I wonder how different is that ^ different from this v
May be in trial way before we publicly know about it or active in few areas.I wonder how different is that ^ different from this v
NEW DELHI: Railway minister Suresh Prabhu’s plan to redevelop 100 stations into world-class terminals in partnership with corporations is set to get a big start with state-run real estate company National Buildings Construction Corporation picking up 10 stations for revamp at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore.
“We’ll be redeveloping 10 stations and the monetisation would be done through commercial exploitation of the land that railway provides,” said Anoop Kumar Mittal, chairman at National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC).
Corporations participating in this initiative in the first phase would redevelop core infrastructure such as platform, lounges, ticketing counters, parking and other passenger amenities, besides building separate arrival and departure terminals on the lines of airports, a railway board official said.
Against this, they would get commercial exploitation rights of these stations’ land bank for 45 years. They can build or lease land to hotels, malls, multiplexes and corporates, the official said.
The stations NBCC has identified are Varanasi, Jaipur, Kota, Sarai Rohilla (Delhi), Thane, Margao (Goa), Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Tirupati and Puducherry. NBCC will construct commercial and residential spaces on the station land earmarked for development.'
“We’ll soon start the work on the detailed projects reports of these stations,” Mittal told ET.
According to a government official, the minimum investment required for redeveloping 10 stations would be Rs 5,000 crore. NBCC is a profit-making central PSU that has zero debt on its books.
The government recently sold 15 per cent stake in the company. Minister Prabhu had recently told ET that various public sector units apart from private companies were also willing to invest in redevelopment of stations. Experts welcomed the decision.
“The risk appetite of private companies does not allow them to make huge investment in infrastructure, so it’s a good idea for cash-rich public companies to invest,” said Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner at KPMG.
“It will also create good value for NBCC since as they will unlock the wealth through monetising land bank,” he told ET.
Bhattacharya said NBCC must be targeting to make at least two times of its total investment. The company successfully implemented a similar model of redevelopment in Delhi’s New Moti Bagh (Chanakyapuri) where housing for top bureaucrats (rank of joint secretary and above) was developed at the cost of Rs 1,700 crore after selling a small piece of the land to Leela Palace Hotels.
NBCC is working on the same model for redevelopment of other government-owned colonies in Delhi.
GUWAHATI: The Centre today announced an investment of over Rs 5,000 crore to construct a 12-km-long elevated railway corridor inside Guwahati, contributing to the smart city project.
"We are going to develop the Guwahati station with an elevated terminal. The entire corridor between Kamakhya and New Guwahati will be elevated. This will be a Rs 5,000-crore project," Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said here.
The Indian Railways will form a joint venture in the form of a special purpose vehicle with the state government to implement the project.
"In the next 15 days, DPR will be prepared. The exact shareholding between the two partners will be known later. We will start the work in the next few months," he said.
There will be seven platforms in the 12 km stretch and the terminals will be developed for commercial purposes as well, he added.
"The three stations in Kamakhya, Guwahati and New Guwahati will be connected to metro line, which is coming up in the city. The entire project is meant to contribute to the smart city project," Prabhu said.
There will be four elevated tracks with 12 level crossings and it will take just 15 minutes to cross the stretch, he added.
Prabhu also laid foundation stones of three projects and flagged off a new passenger train through remote system.
The three projects are -- doubling of tracks in New Bongaigaon-Kamakhya section via Goalpara, Digaru-Hojai line and electrification of Jalpaiguri-Guwahati route.
These three projects will entail a cumulative investment of Rs 3,758.83 crore and will be completed by 2021.
Prabhu also flagged off Karimganj-Maishashan-Silchar passenger train, sanctioned at a cost of Rs 55 crore.
"Maishashan in Assam is the border town for train link to Bangladesh. This line is important link for Trans-Asian railway network through Bangladesh," he added.
On this occasion, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal requested Prabhu to connect all the district headquarters of the state with rail network.
"I also request the Railway Minister to reserve the third and fourth grade jobs for local youths," Sonowal said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate a two-day meeting on November 18, which will deliberate on creating a bigger Indian Railways (IR) by leveraging its capex of $125 billion.
For the first half ending September, its Gross Traffic Earnings (GTR) have declined by 4.5% as against targeted growth rate of 13% and its operating ratio has deteriorated to 114%. It is likely to report net loss of Rs 25,000 crore in the current year. It is tragic that IR proposes to increase financial leverage by $75 billion that too for un-remunerative projects like bullet trains, at a time when it is not generating enough operating cash surplus to service its existing debt or to make adequate provision for a Depreciation Reserve Fund. Despite these challenges, nobody seems to have the and courage to apprise Modi about the unprecedented financial crisis facing IR.
Indian Railways is rapidly slipping into a financial morass and terminal debt trap. To avert the impending tragedy, it time to think anew. Variables like the nature of the railways business, its relative competitive position and variability of costs have to be re-visited. The erosion of competitive strength is unlikely to be solved by regulation; instead it requires putting aside the monopoly mindset and offering superior and compelling value to customers. Indian Railways is suitable for implementing a scale-driven operating strategy: Play on volumes, reduce unit cost, reduce prices, gain margins and market share and earn billions of dollars in profits.
The whole demand side strategy can be encapsulated in three words: Dynamic, differential and market-driven. Since variability of cost is negligible, its pricing strategy has to be based on marginal costing and its emphasis has to shift from pricing per passenger/tonne to maximising profits through yield and margins per train.
In future, it should shun any increase in passenger or freight rates which affects its competitive strength. On the other hand, for playing the volume game, as was done successfully during 2004-09, rates have to be reduced substantially for many business segments.
For regaining long distance traffic of coal it should boldly decide that delivered cost of domestic coal transported by the Railways would be more than cost of imported coal in equivalent calorific terms.
Surge pricing for AC classes and other exploitative charges should be scrapped immediately.
Railways will continue to function as a department run commercial undertaking and a separate statement of budget estimates and demand for grant will be created for the national transporter after the merger of Railway Budget with the Union Budget from the fiscal 2017-18, Lok Sabha was told today.
Its exactly the same, however, now things are getting better and cleaner.I haven't traveled by train for about 5 years! Almost forgotten what it's like! Miss it!
NEW DELHI: Board of NCR Transport Corporation today approved the long-awaited 92 km Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail corridor which entails a capital investment of Rs 21,902 crore and is expected to bring down travel time between Delhi and Meerut to less than an hour.
Board of National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) Board, chaired by Union Urban Development Secretary Rajiv Gauba, has approved the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS) corridor which was first conceived more than 10 years ago, a source said.
On completion of the corridor, travel time between Delhi and Meerut will come down to 48 minutes by Express trains and 60 minutes by normal trains, the source added.
Designed for a maximum speed of 180 km per hour with operating speed of 160 kmph, the corridor originates from Sarai Kale Khan terminus station and passes through dense development of Delhi, Ghaziabad and Meerut regions terminating at Modipuram.
Delhi-Meerut RRTS is expected to carry about 7.91 lakh passengers in 2024, 9.20 lakh in 2031 and 11.40 lakh passengers in 2041.
The corridor was one of such corridors proposed in 2005 by the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) under a 'Functional Plan on Transport for NCR-2032' to connect various important towns of National Capital Region with high speed rail based commuter transit system.
Of the 92.05 km long corridor, 60.354 km will be elevated viaducts while 30.245 km will be underground.
There will be a total of 17 stations including 11 elevated and 6 underground stations.
38.05 km long Sahibabad-Meerut South section including Duhai Depot is planned for commencement of revenue operations in January 2023, 16.60 km Sarai Kale Khan-Sahibabad in January 2024 and the remaining 37.40 km Meerut South-Modipuram in July 2024.
The Board also decided in favour of ensuring multi-modal integration at Sarai Kale Khan, Anand Vihar, ISBT (Kashmiri Gate) and Aero City in Delhi to enable easy transition from one mode of transit to the other, the source said.
It also decided to take up with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways realignment of Delhi-Sonepat-Panipat and Delhi-Rewari-Alwar RRTC corridors to run them along NH-1 and NH-8 respectively.