Railways’ dedicated freight corridor nears completion, scales up ambition
Eighteenodd years after it was first proposed, more than 90% of the 2,843 km of railway corridor dedicated to freight transport — built at a cost of ₹1.24lakh crore — is operational; DFCCIL, an special purpose vehicle of the Indian Railways, is operatin
Amazon is said to be piloting the use of Rewari–Palanpur section of the dedicated freight corridor for movement of goods along the Haryana–Gujarat industrial corridor
In 12odd hours — about half the time it takes by road — Maruti Suzuki’s automotive parts travel the 659 km between New Rewari in Haryana to Palanpur in Gujarat on the truckontrain service (ToT) provided by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd. (DFCCIL).
Logistics company Vinsum Axpress, which handles the consignment, shifted to the ToT service in February, using sixeight wagons. “We are more than willing to expand operations along the dedicated freight corridor. Our initial experience in transporting automotive parts has been very good,” says Vinod Sharma, Chairman and MD, Vinsum Axpress.
Eighteenodd years after it was first proposed, more than 90% of the 2,843 km of railway corridors dedicated to freight transport — built at a cost of ₹1.24lakh crore — is operational.
DFCCIL, a special purpose vehicle of Indian Railways, operates both arms of the corridor — the 1,337km Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Ludhiana in Punjab to Sonnagar in Bihar, which is fully operational; and the 1,506km Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, of which 88% (about 1,300 km) is operational.
And with nearly 140 km more being commissioned and ready for operations by Aprilend, post inspection, more than 96% of the network will be completed, making it a significant milestone in India’s freight movement history.
First train in 2020
The first train on the dedicated freight corridor was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2020, between New Bhaupur and New Khurja in Uttar Pradesh.
More than 1.7 lakh trains have since traversed the dedicated freight corridors.
The 110km connectivity between JNPT and Vaitarna in Maharashtra, on the WDFC, is expected to be completed within a year.
Mr. Sharma says the freight corridor saves the company nearly ₹12,000 per truck per trip, which it would otherwise pay as road toll on the Haryana– Ahmedabad route, not to mention the savings on time and fuel.
Cost saving
“My overall cost savings, after switching to the rail network, is nearly 50%,” he says.
The ToT service began in February with transporting milk and other perishables between Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh before adding nonperishables, including automotive parts and cement.
There are plans to add even more items, given the cost savings. For instance, the transport cost per kg per km on roadways is ₹4 (on average across categories), while through railway it is ₹1.36 for foodgrains, ₹2.47 for iron ore, and ₹2.13 for petroleum products.
DFCCIL is in talks with ecommerce players such as Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho for the use of WDFC for their transport needs, especially leveraging the corridor’s proposed connectivity to JNPT port.
“Talks are also on with other logistics players who rely on ecommerce orders,” says an official, who refused to be named.
Interestingly, Amazon is already piloting the use of the Rewari–Palanpur section of the dedicated freight corridor for the movement of goods along the Haryana–Gujarat industrial corridor. A single coach with 18tonne capacity is being run daily for the ecommerce major.
Optimal operation
Against the dedicated freight corridor’s optimum capacity of 480 trains per day on both arms together, there are 300320 running currently (200 on EDFC and 100 on WDFC); the average speed is 5560 km per hr (maximum is 100 kmph), compared with 20 kmph on the Indian Railways freight service.
“The idea is to bring down logistics costs with faster movement of freight trains, as compared to road movement. The corridor is already running at 63odd% capacity and the time saved is about 40%,” a senior DFCCIL official says.
According to an environmental assessment by E&Y, the dedicated freight corridor can cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 457 million tonnes over the next 30 years.
The halts along the corridor are spaced at around 40 km, against 5 km on other tracks, leading to faster movement of goods.
The organisation also uses modified general sleeper (NMGS) wagons — that is, coaches that were previously used in older passenger trains and phased out over the last few years are being modified to run parcel services.
(The writer is with The Hindu businessline)