Indian Railways will roll out coaches using German technology. Four coach factories will replace the indigenously designed carriages with 4,000 Linke Holfmann Bush coaches.

However, the Indian Railways is not planning to make a complete shift to LHBs on rail tracks, but the Integrated Coach Factory designed old coaches will be phased out once they outlive their life span.

Conventional coaches run for 25 years and are prices at INR 1.5 crore, while LHB AC coaches cost between INR 2.5 crore and INR 3 crore, serve about a decade more.

According to Mr KK Saxena GM of Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala a complete phase out of conventional coaches and proliferation of LHB coaches would be possible by 2040, if there was no policy change by the government.

He said that “The complete switchover from conventional coaches to LHBs is possible when RCF starts rolling out non-AC LHB coaches on a large scale.”

RCF produces end on generation air conditioned LHB coaches. It is also expected to develop a second variant of the power car for non AC coaches within the next five to six months, which will have commercially useful space on the top. At the bottom, there will be underslung power generation sets of lower capacity suitable for them.

Increase in carrying capacity and life cycle of LHB coaches is expected to bring down transportation cost for every kilometre by about 12 -15 per cent, even though production costs of LHB is higher.

Mr Saxena said that RCF has invested INR 114 crore since 2007 for the transition. Another INR 130 crore has been sanctioned for phase II of the project, which will be invested over a period of 2 to 3 years.

Increase in carrying capacity and life cycle of LHB coaches is expected to bring down transportation cost for every kilometre by about 12 to 15%, even though production costs of LHB is higher. With the optimisation of line capacity, the speed potential can also go up to 200 kilometres an hour from 110 kmph now.

(Sourced from BS)