The South Central Railway (SCR) on Wednesday, for the very first time, transported automobiles from Telangana’s Zahirabad to Jirania in Tripura.
Officials aware of this development informed that mini trucks and commercial vehicles were transported to Jirania Railway Station in Tripura.
As per reports, 15 NMG (newly modified goods) wagons consisting of 69 vehicles were transported to Jirania, covering a distance of around 3,600 km from Zahirabad. It is the farthest distance covered by Railways from SCR connecting south India with Northeast states, an official said.
Along with these, 10 NMG wagons consisting of 42 vehicles were loaded to Changsari in Assam.
The NMG rakes are based upon old passenger wagons which are customised to accommodate cars. The Railways removes all seats and welds the windows and side doors, thus, creating an empty capsule to load cars from the rear end. A single rake or train with up to 27 wagons is able to carry up to 125 cars of all sizes.
Abiding by the advice from the rail ministry, SCR has accorded special focus on freight traffic.
In light of the same, to strengthen existing traffic and attract new traffic towards Railways, Business Development Units (BDUs) have been set up at both zonal and divisional level. The Secunderabad divisional BDU has been making special efforts to increase the freight basket of the division.
The continuous efforts by the team have led Zahirabad as fast-evolving and a preferred station for loading automobiles over the Secunderabad division. Compared to the last financial year, wherein only one automobile rake was loaded during the entire year, this year already 10 rakes have been loaded from this station.”
~ South Central Railway said in a statement
Earlier, the automobile traffic used to go only to Changsari in Assam. However, the continuous efforts of Secunderabad division officials in coordinating and monitoring with freight customers has led to the addition of one more new destination that is Jirania in Tripura, which is also the farthest point among the zonal freight loading stations.
In a similar instance, Indian Railways flagged off the 50th rake of the Indian Railways’ NMG wagons from the Penukonda junction in Andhra Pradesh earlier on October 13, just 12 kilometres from a state-of-the-art 300,000-unit annual capacity manufacturing plant in Anantapur district.
