Railways set a world record by running first Double Stack Container Train in electrified territory

New Delhi, June 12: Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said that the Indian Railways created a new world benchmark by successfully running their first Double Stack Container Train with high rise OHE electrified sections in the electrified territory on the Western Railway. This tremendous achievement is a first of its kind in the entire world and it will also help to boost the ambitious mission of Green India as the latest green initiative over Indian Railways.

 

 

With that record, Indian Railways has proudly become the first railway to run double-stack container train with an overhead wire as high as 7.57 meters with high reach pantograph in high rise OHE territory, the operations of which successfully commenced on June 10 (Wednesday) from Palanpur and Botad stations in Gujarat, the Railway Ministry said in a statement.

 

 

The concept of high-rise overhead wires was conceived in 2008 but it took 12 years to make it a reality. WR which investigated the cause of poor current collection in January 2020 and gave a solution for working train with front panto in high rise overhead wires, played a vital role to run trains on electric traction in high rise territory. The overhead wires need to be that high to be able to accommodate double-stack containers.

  

Keeping pace with the country's mission of 100 percent electrification of Indian Railways, the Western Railway has achieved the highest electrification of 664 km route during the financial year 2019-20. This includes Ahmedabad-Palanpur, Ahmedabad-Viramgam, Viramgam-Mehsana, Surendranagar-Botad-Dhola, and Surendranagar-Dharngadhra in the state of Gujarat.

 

With the introduction of electric traction, which is the pollution-free and energy-efficient mode of transport, Western Railway is expected to save about R 100 crores per annum on fuel expenses.

 

Besides this, Indian Railways has transported 178.68 million tonnes of commodities through its uninterrupted 24X7 freight trains operations across the country from 1st April 2020 to 10th June 2020. The statement also said that of these, more than 18 lakh wagons carried essential commodities like food grains, salt, sugar, milk, edible oil, onion, fruits and vegetables, petroleum products, coal, fertilizers, etc. throughout the country.

 

Also, the freight train operations, the Railways from March 22 to June 10 operated 3,897 parcel trains of which 3,790 were time-tabled special parcel trains in which 1.39 lakh tonnes of consignment were loaded.