Railways to use aluminium and stainless steel coaches

28 November 2016

The Indian Railways, which earlier used Corten steel to manufacture coaches at its Integral Coach Factory (ICF), is gradually shifting towards stainless steel which is used to manufacture German Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches.

The minister of state for railways, Rajen Gohain, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, said a specification for aluminium body coaches has been developed by the Research Designs and Standards Organization.

This comes at a time when the national carrier saw one of the deadliest train accidents—the derailment of the Indore- Patna Express—on 20 November killing 150 passengers and injuring more than 200.

“The carrying capacity of an LHB coach is generally more by about 10% as compared to an ICF type coach. In spite of the increased carrying capacity, the weight of most variants of LHB type coaches is marginally lesser as compared to that of the corresponding ICF type coach,” said a press release issued by the ministry of railways on the Lok Sabha reply on Wednesday.

The Indian Railways is also using stainless steel for manufacturing new generation electric multiple unit and diesel electric multiple unit coaches which are used in the suburban railway networks with the aim to increase the life of coaches.

The national carrier has also introduced stainless steel for the manufacturing of its wagons.

According to the press statement, the use of stainless steel in BOXNHL type of open wagons has led to a weight reduction of about 2.5 tonne and increase in carrying capacity of about 3 tonne with respect to the earlier BOXN wagons.

The derailment of the Indore-Patna Express train has renewed concern about the poor safety standards of the state-run network.

The national carrier has also exceeded its target for commissioning new railway lines by 313km in the the previous financial year. According to another press statement on Wednesday, the Indian railways achieved commissioning of 813km of new lines compared with a target of 500km.

According to experts, stainless steel and aluminium have more strength and are lighter in weight which can be used to build low-weight coaches.

“Ultimately the railways has to design coaches keeping in mind the dynamics of a moving train. The design of the coaches must be made for safer conditions. If facilities are not augmented to maintain the large fleet, probability of accidents will increase,” said Sudhir Badami, a transportation analyst and member of Research and MIS Committee of Unified Mumbai Metropolitan Transport Authority.

Source – VC Circle