Indigenous made, recently launched Train 18 attracts Global market

New Delhi, Jan 19: Peru, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and some countries in the Middle East have expressed interest in importing the Railways' state-of-the-art Train 18, even as the project awaits its first commercial run, a senior official said today.

"Many countries have expressed interest in the train set and we are happy and proud that an indigenously made product is attracting so much interest. The rolling stock market worldwide is worth about 200 billion dollars and we want a significant share of it. Now, the aim is to successfully run the train," said Member, Rolling Stock, Railway Board, Rajesh Agarwal.

Agarwal said their aim is to successfully run the train. He said the Train 18 is their latest creation which took 18 months from the idea stage to completion and manufacturing stage.

With 16 coaches, the train will have the same passenger carrying capacity as that of the Shatabdi Express with a seating capacity of 1,128 passengers. Two of the centre compartments are first class compartments that seat 52 each, with the rest being coach compartments seating 78 each.

The train's seats, braking system, doors, and transformers are the only elements of the train to be outsourced, with plans to make them domestically on the production of the next unit. Train 18 employs a regenerative braking system, and also uses electro-pneumatic brakes from Hungary.