Raghu Dayal

THE Railways' recent achievements in freight haulage are highly creditable. While more traffic is being lifted by the Railways than ever before, despite the barely improved wagon availability, it still has a long way to go. Much of the additional capacity has been achieved by a simple stratagem — the ad hoc decision of allowing additional tonnage to be loaded in wagons beyond their carrying capacity. Besides, the impact of a buoyant economy, measures to reduce the detention time of freight cars, capture the return empty flows, and extend working hours for loading and unloading have helped.

Notwithstanding the induction of new technologies and costlier inputs, such as heavier-duty rails, concrete sleepers, elastic fasteners, long-welded rail panels and mechanised maintenance of the railbeds, over the last few decades, a strange obduracy on the part of technical experts has continued to block progress towards higher payloads per axle of wagon (at least 25 tonne vs. 20.3 tonne per axle, for instance, in a four-axled, eight-wheeled wagon).

Like the axle load, the prevalent net weight to tare weight ratio for wagons on Indian Railways, varying between 2 and 2.6, is one of the lowest in the world.

The IR's metre gauge system's payload-to-tare-weight ratio, at 3.7, is far better than on the broad gauge. In the standard gauge system on US railroads and other western railroads, it is between 3.5 and 4.5. Whereas the IR thus carries 450 kg of the wagon's deadweight for every 1,000 kg of freight carried, this is only 170 kg in the US.

North American railroads have, over the years, increased the axle load to 30 tonnes and reduced their tariff to a highly competitive level vis-à-vis road. American railroads' average earning from coal per ntkm (net tonne km) is much less vis-à-vis the IR's, and yet US railroads make money out of coal traffic, after increasing the axle load to 30 tonnes.

In addition to higher axle load of, say, 30 tonnes, a higher payload to tare-weight ratio of about 4 and new standard moving dimensions need to be adopted for the proposed freight routes, to gain an optimal yield from track and rolling stock, and reduce the Railways' unit cost of transportation. Wagons with 30-tonne axle load, operating at 75 kmph, are likely to help reduce unit cost of transportation by over 40 per cent.

The Railways' new initiatives in recent months have but scratched the surface. The improvements must be sustainable. It will involve hard decisions, hard work, and strong will. Bulk commodities such as coal, iron and steel, raw materials for steel-making, foodgrains and fertilisers, cement and aggregates constitute the Railways' bread and butter, and it should enable these users to optimise savings in transport and inventory,.

The key to a more successful railroad marketing strategy is faster, more regular, damage-free and reliable service. The industry would also be expected to run shorter, more frequent freight trains — to speed up deliveries of consumer goods. In many places, it may be feasible to get a train to originate from a section or a concentrated loading point; nominated day-loading for specific destinations or junctions may also help obtain train-loads of wagons booked piecemeal.

The industry should be enabled to use the container as its basic method for moving high-value manufactured goods, along with hoppers and tank-cars for bulk commodities. Today, less than one-third of the containerised cargo received at India's ports is carried inland in containers, the rest being destuffed at gateway terminals. Even so, while export-import traffic has grown appreciably — in fact, almost doubled every five years — the progress in multimodal containerisation of domestic cargo has been sorely neglected.

For bulk haulage of freight through block train operations, an essential corollary is a substantial step-up in the development of terminal facilities for loading and unloading of traffic, including the storage, approach roads, circulating area, communications, lighting, security and other ancillary facilities. Higher utilisation of the stock will depend on better mobility and reduction in detention at terminals and depots.

Rolling stock failures cause the largest share of train failures which, in turn, cause a loss of about 20 per cent of line capacity. In 2003-04, the Railways reported 2,556 engine failures, with an average of 231engine km per engine failure.

The system suffers other bad-order equipment, such as permanent way, overhead electric catenary and signals. An analysis, projecting to year 2007, found that a system-wide 50 per cent reduction in asset failures would enable the Railways carry 12 per cent more traffic which, in turn, would help generate 15 per cent in freight revenue.

Evidently, the Railways needs to seriously introspect and change track, looking at its own products to provide for comprehensive integrated logistics solutions in partnership with major industrial sectors. Exchange yards need to be taken off the railway lexicon. The Railways needs to shed the baggage of the past and expeditiously bring about an effective change in its siding regime: Its cost-structure, staffing, and maintenance obligations.

In fact, the Railways has been oblivious to the immense inherent advantage which sidings enjoy by virtue of basic infrastructure for door-to-door logistics services for most of their requirements, for bringing in raw materials, machines and equipment, consumables and other inputs, as well as for sending out finished products for export as well as internal consumption.

The Railways must bring about technological evolution in equipment and practices, and move towards higher axle load, higher payload-to-tare ratio, optimal moving dimensions, material-handling facilities, appropriate terminals, maintenance standards and practices.

(The author is a former Managing Director, Concor.)

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