Bhubaneswar: The East Coast Railway (ECoR) ran three train rakes at a time on an experimental basis for the first time in an attempt to make use of less manpower and for economic path utilisation.
The length of the complete train was about 2000 metre.
“The train consisting of 147 Wagons, 3 brake/guard vans and 4 engines was planned to run on an experimental basis between Godbhaga and Balangir stations in Sambalpur Railway Division,” an ECoR press release said.
The concept of long-haul trains was mooted some years ago as a pilot project to halve the time required for the journey of two trains and increase goods train operation within the existing infrastructure. It was identified as a focus area in the railways’ passenger and freight sector action plan for 2017-18.
North Central Railways ran these freight service in the name of ‘python’ while western railways named it ‘anaconda’, characterised by the looks of these longish rakes.
The aim was optimise the existing infrastructure, boost freight operations and ease congestion on tracks, said a Railway Ministry official. Instead of running three freight trains in separate slots, ECoRly has coupled three trains together, thus freeing the existing tracks for smooth passenger movements as well besides optimising the freight services.
Countries such as Australia, Russia and USA are the pioneers in it.
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