India to bring in German rail coaches

NEW DELHI // India will replace its fleet of old railway coaches with high-tech German-built models after about 200 people were killed in disasters on the network in the past two months.

Thirty-nine people died when a train derailed in southern Andhra Pradesh state on Saturday night, two months after 146 people died in a similar accident near the northern city of Kanpur last November.

The state-run network, one of the world’s largest, has been hit by several smaller incidents in the same period, including a crash near Kanpur on December 28 last year when two people were killed.

The deadly crashes have renewed concerns about the colonial-era system, which experts said was suffering from chronic underinvestment and poor safety standards despite being a lifeline for millions.

Indian Railways yesterday said that the government was looking to phase out the old and conventional coaches designed by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.

“There will be zero production of the old ICF-designed coaches. They will be replaced by Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches by 2018 and 2019,” it said. “The problem is not in replacing but about what to do with the existing fleet. We are looking at ways, we will find a solution soon.” The LHB coaches are equipped with “anti-telescopic” technology which prevents coaches from crumpling and piling on top of one another in case of accidents, thereby curbing the number of fatalities. R N Malhotra, a former administrative head of Indian Railways, said an overhaul was long overdue but warned that just relying on new coaches would not solve the myriad issues dogging the network.

The Indian railways carry about 23 million people every day.