Indian Railways soon to launch new Vande Bharat based Freight EMU services

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): With an objective of capturing additional high-value time-sensitive cargo, which is presently being transported through other modes of transport, Indian Railways is planning to introduce super-fast parcel services.

These services are being planned via new "Freight EMU" rolling stock built on the Vande Bharat platform, the first rake of which will likely be introduced in service very soon. The salient features of the Vande Bharat Freight EMU rakes are under:

• The operational speed potential of Freight EMU will be 160 kmph
• These rakes will be designed for palletized container transportation
• These rakes will have distributed powering with 50% powering
• These rakes will have 1,800mm vide automatic sliding plug doors
• These rakes will have a pneumatically retractable roller floor system with locking arrangements for handling pallets
• These rakes will have provision for loading reefer containers for temperature-sensitive cargo
• The payload of the rakes will be 264 Tonnes in a 16-car formation.

Based on the interactions with some potential customers, the first service will be introduced between the Delhi-NCR region and the Mumbai region. In this regard, Railway Board has requested Zonal Railways to identify and interact with the potential customers at the Zonal/Divisional level.

Based on the responses, the Indian Railways will identify the terminals for running the initial services; ensure that necessary infrastructure and facilities, required for to run Freight EMU services, are available at the identified terminals; and decide the time-table for Freight EMU services in consultation with en-route Zonal Railways.

"Necessary infrastructure and facilities at the identified terminals may be created in a time-bound manner, within the next three weeks. Other potential routes for the running of subsequent services of Freight EMUs may also be identified in consultations with potential customers and other stakeholders," said the letter written to all Zonal Railways by the Railway Board on 11th October 2022.

The Freight EMU services will be monitored at the highest level.