Chennai Central and Basin Bridge railway stations were centre of activity on Saturday when chairman of Railway Board Ashwani Lohani visited them.

He inaugurated the passenger friendly display of Chennai Central station layout situated in front of station directors room. He also inaugurated the newly constructed staff canteen and ladies restroom that day.

According to a press release, Ashwani Lohani took stock of the new facilities being provided at Chennai Central such as the new lift, pay and use toilets, newly launched Jan Ahar, new cafe and crew luggage box room.

He was briefed about the ongoing and proposed works such as crew lobby renovation, cable tray arrangements, IRCTC food plaza, app based taxi stand, shelter connectivity between Moore Market Complex, Chennai Central and Metro subways.

Railway board chairman also had an extensive interaction with gang staff and loco pilots. He lauded the sincere efforts of the gang staff and loco pilots in ensuring safe train operations.

On inspection of the Running Room, the Chairman assessed that the cabin has requisite amenities. Later, the chairman also visited Southern Railway Headquarters and held meetings with officials duly reviewing the performance of Southern Railway. He met representatives of recognised trade unions and various associations of staff and officers.

Railway officials at all levels were highly inspired and motivated by sessions held by Ashwani Lohani. The Chairman of Railway Board expressed high satisfaction over the various developments in ICF.

He also appreciated the spirit of staff over Chennai Division of Southern Railway and lauded the team efforts in continuously upgrading various facilities.

Union minister of state for railways Rajen Gohain will lay the foundation stone for the works for doubling of tracks and electrification of Kanyakumari-Nagercoil-Thiruvananthapuram section at Nagercoil Junction Railway station on Tuesday.

The construction work for the 86.56km line is estimated at Rs 1431.90 crore. Cabinet committee on economic affairs had approved the project in August last year. The work to be implemented by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd is expected to be completed in four years.

The doubling and electrification project was proposed as a solution to the delay in train traffic movement in the sector, especially Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil section.

In addition to expediting the operation of goods and coaching trains, the project also provides additional capacity for the increase in traffic in future. The Vizhinjam seaport project is likely to be complete by 2019 and bring good revenue to the railways.

“It is estimated that after the completion of the Vizhinjam seaport, 30% of its traffic is likely to be handled by railways. Considering the terrain, the construction work in the Nagercoil section will be easier than Thiruvananthapuram, which has gradients and require land acquisition from inhabited area,” said an official from Thiruvananthapuram railway division.

Rajen Gohain will also inaugurate the construction works in the 160km Madurai-Vanchi Maniyachchi-Tuticorin section and 102km Vanchi-Maniyachchi-Tirunelveli-Nagercoil section in the function and passenger amenities such as escalator, LED lighting and WiFi service at Nagercoil station.

The latest decision by the Indian Railways to rationalise the tariff structure for coal transportation is expected to benefit independent power producers (IPPs) with a generation capacity of about 22,000 mega watt (MW). Under the new freight rate system, thermal power producers would now be compensated for various surcharges which, in the previous tariff structure, caused annual under-recovery of about Rs 2,000 crore. The new railway tariff subsumes additional surcharges like the busy season surcharge (BSS), development surcharge (DS) and coal terminal surcharge (CTS) levied on coal transportation. By doing that, these expenses would now be included in the price escalation index for coal by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). The index is used in the calculation of variable fuel charges of power production, liable to be passed through to consumers.

According to estimates by the Association of Power Producers, the average impact of BSS and DS was Rs 994 crore per annum since FY15. Under-recovery from CTS between August, 2016 and June, 2017 was more than Rs 1,000 crore. Though the base-price of coal transportation will now be higher, power generators—who use the majority of coal produced in the country—can recover all the expenses incurred on fuel transportation. However, experts noted that the benefits from the change in railway freight structure will only be realised from July onward, when the CERC is expected to prepare the price escalation index. For price recoveries of these surcharges imposed in the previous years (FY15-18), CERC has to approve them as ‘change in law’.

As reported earlier, the current fuel escalation index, which excludes assorted taxes and levies on coal and its transportation via the railways, has caused under-recoveries of Rs 8,400 crore to a clutch of independent producers over the five years to FY17.  In a letter to power minister RK Singh, IPPs had indicated that the index did not cover 49% of coal costs and 21% of fuel transportation costs. The development is expected to bring some relief to thermal electricity producers after Coal India raised the price of coal grades most commonly used by the power sector by 15-18%, hiking power generation costs by about Rs 0.10-0.20/unit.

The dreams of a high-speed local train have crashed and burned. The special rake was supposed to have a running speed close to that of Gatimaan Express, India’s fastest train. But after pouring Rs. 60 crore and six years into building it and conducting trial runs, the railway authorities have finally admitted that the so-called high-speed train is barely faster than a regular local.

The Western Railway (WR) started testing the high-speed MRVC 1181 train in 2012, but all these years, officials remained tight-lipped on why it hadn’t been pressed into service. It is only now that the authorities have responded to RTI (Right To Information) queries, admitting that the Rs. 60-crore rake is a complete failure.

This information came to light through a series of responses this month to a commuter activist’s RTI applications to WR, the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC), and the Lucknow-based Railway Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO).

Contradictory answers

The trials were conducted between Mumbai, Virar and Dahanu, but all three organisations have given contradictory information on the number of trials conducted. WR’s reply stated only that trials were conducted at variable speeds, and sanctioned speed was 145 kmph. MRVC’s reply stated that two trials were conducted on the Virar-Dahanu section, and that they were not successful. This response also added that the train will be put into regular service after necessary modifications. There was no mention of the trial speed.

The reply from RDSO said that three trials were conducted, and the train failed at 140 kmph, which was the top speed for testing. RDSO’s response further explained that the train failed the trial runs because of a fault in the design of the bogie (the undercarriage and wheels).

While the high-speed rake looks similar to the other locals, it is the bogie that would have made all the difference. It’s frame and technology was bought from Siemens, Austria, as part of the R4,500-crore Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). The train would have cut down the travel time for longer distances to Dahanu, Karjat and Kasara by at least 20 to 25 minutes.

Dead weight

The train was rolled out by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. The nine-car rake was filled with heavy bags of sand and debris during the test runs. “The bags were equal to the weight of a crowded train. Trials were conducted till a few years ago, but now the train has just been standing here,” said an official at the Virar car shed. The train has now been cannibalised, as most of its functional parts, like lighting, seating and other accessories, have been used as replacements for existing running trains.

Railway officials now claim that they had only planned to conduct trials with the rake, and it was never intended to be pressed into service. “There are limitations within the city for such high-speed travel, given the back-to-back line up of the trains in the saturated suburban system and the quality of tracks. But, it is easily possible outside city limits, at the Dahanu and Kasara-Karjat stretches. However, the tracks too need to be equipped to cater to such speeds,” said an official.

No officials were willing to speak on record about the project, and there was no explanation for why the authorities spent Rs. 60 crore on a train that was only meant to be used for trials. It seems all the more wasteful now, considering the success of the new Bombardier rakes, which are capable of running at about 110 to 120kmph, and cost nearly Rs. 10 crore less to make.

The Indian Railways is undertaking massive structural, cultural and process reforms to improve ease of doing business, even as it is focussed on growth and consolidation of its enormous operations, Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani has said.

The 164-year-old railroad network, the world’s fourth-longest, is trying to empower those at the field level, and is ready to hold industry-specific dialogues with the private sector, Lohani told a gathering of chief executives and fund managers at a Round table meet on ‘Railways – The Engine of Growth’ – part of a series on infrastructure. “We have done away with age old petty practices and are cracking down on corruption. It’s a tall order, no doubt, but at least we have started moving in that direction,” Lohani said. The railways is also finalising a few corridors because existing ones are choked and burdened with a wide spectrum of services, with average speeds ranging from 18 km per hour for goods to 45 km for passenger trains.

Industry executives at the event lauded the efforts of the railways, but suggested steps like a truly empowered regulator, clarity on longterm purchases and a strategy whereby the railways focuses on running core operations, leaving other services to the private sector.

Sujoy Bose, CEO, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Ltd, said there was enormous potential for private investment and that the fund was interested in public-private partnerships (PPPs) in services such as development of cargo and dedicated freight corridors, railway station developments, and electrification.

To help PPP succeed, the railways needs a truly independent regulator, said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of Feedback Infa. He also flagged concerns about how the railways would meet its enormous fund requirement, particularly in the short term. Industry leaders said Indian companies can operate globally.

“Why don’t we have an Indian global rolling stock manufacturer? Why do we have to go outside in the world, because when it comes to railway rolling stock, we always look outside our country,” said Umesh Chowdhary, vice chairman and managing director, Titagarh Group.

He said other countries partnered with their manufacturers. “Is there a way the railways can actually think in terms of doing the same and having an Indian multinational which can first cater to the demands of the growing needs of the Indian railways and then become global there?”

Unmesh Abhyankar, a top executive with the Adani Group, said: “There needs to be certainty of permitting us to invest in wagons, because we tie up with the customers, make commitments. You are coming out with a liberalised wagon investment scheme …where railways makes a firm commitment and private sector is actually allowed to own the other wagons.”

Nalin Jain, president & CEO, international, GE transportation, said railways needed to become more customerfocused and shed ad-hoc decisionmaking. He said the process of adopting new technologies should be speeded up because the prevailing system took a long time for assessment and approval.

The Railway Board chairman said simplification of decision making was underway. He also accepted a suggestion by Mahendra Singhi, group CEO, cement, Dalmia Bharat Cement, that the railways should have industry-specific dialogues with the corporate sector. Singhi said industry and the railways can cooperate in making projections about growth and help reduce uncertainty. The steel sector also needs clarity on the metal demand of the railways and how the network would deal with the massive rise in cargo movement as India plans a big expansion in capacity.

“We are running a purely commercial business in a sarkari way,” he quipped. The railways is gung-ho about infrastructure and improving its signalling system, toilets and coaches. It plans to have bio-toilets in all trains by December 2018. Lohani said the Railway Board is doing 4,300 km of rail renewal this year and a lot of repair has happened in the last four months. Apart from station redevelopment, cleanliness is another area of focus.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal yesterday said land has been acquired for two locomotive engine factories in Madhepura and Saran districts of Bihar.

An Electric Locomotive engine factory would be set up at Madhepura and a Diesel Locomotive engine unit would be established at Marhaura in Saran district in PPP mode.

Goyal was speaking while laying foundation stone for various projects at Ara railway station through video conferencing, according to an official release.

A total of 226.9 acre of land was acquired for the Rs 2719 crore diesel locomotive engine factory which will produce 1000 diesel locomotive engines in 11 years, he said.

For the other factory, 306 acres of land has been acquired at Madhepura to set up the unit at a cost of Rs 1293.57 crore and a total of 800 electric engines will be built in 11 years from there.

Development of Railways in Bihar has always been in the priority of the Central government and work on 26 various rail projects worth Rs 18,180 crore is in progress in the state, said the minister.

Besides, four projects of gauge conversion and 20 projects meant for doubling of tracks are also going on in Bihar, he said.

In a unique initiative, the Western Railway Women’s Welfare Organisation or WRWWO has installed sanitary napkin dispensers and incinerators for female staff at all its major offices on the network, a top official said in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Donated by the WRWWO, the first of the coin-operated machines was inaugurated at the Western Railway (WR) headquarters at Churchgate, and all the Divisional Headquarters at Mumbai Central (Maharashtra), Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar (Gujarat) and Ratlam (Madhya Pradesh).

“These incinerators will not only ensure quick disposal of used napkins but also contribute to maintain proper hygiene levels among the women employees,” said Ravinder Bhakar, WR Chief PRO.

On inserting the used napkin in the provided chamber and switching on, it will automatically attain the requisite temperature and convert it into ashes and control the ill-effects of conventional or casual modes of disposal, besides contributing to the ‘Clean India-Green India’ drive, he added.

Archana Gupta urged women employees to take maximum advantage of the machines which evoked a tremendous response among the female staffers.

Alleged members of the Shree Rajput Karni Sena on Wednesday blocked the Mathura-Agra route of the North Central Railway at Bhuteshwar station for about 10 minutes in a “symbolic protest” against controversial film “Padmaavat“, which is scheduled for release tomorrow.

“The agitators blocked a passenger train between Delhi and Mathura, for over 10 minutes at Bhuteshwar station in Mathura district,” GRP Inspector Gaurav Kumar Sharma said.

“We don not want to take law in our hands, however, in spite of so much opposition from the Rajputs, all over the country, the central government neither had made any effort to solve the problem by interacting with the censor board nor has it pleaded the case properly in the apex court,” Kunvar Narendra Singh, President, Brij Mandal Kshatriya Mahasabha and National vice-president of the Mahasabha leading the “Rail Roko Abhiyan” said.

Singh expressed hope that the cinema owners of the district would “cooperate with the agitators” and would not make any effort to exhibit the film in Mathura.

Meanwhile, the district administration has said it has taken every precaution to ensure that the demonstrations does not become violent.

“So long it (demonstration) is peaceful, we would not interfere. However, violation of law would be severely dealt with,” SSP Swapnil Mamgai said.