By the end of this year, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) will have completed a 735-km route after commissioning a 75 km segment between Palanpur and Mehsana.
This was disclosed by Chief General Manager of the PSU Manish Awasthi and Group General Manager Vinod Bhatia. He said 25 tonne axle load rails have been laid at DFC for the operation of two-storeyed double stack container trains carrying 12,000 tonne load. These tracks are of grade 1080 imported from Japan.
Vinod Bhatia pointed out that this is the first time in the country that tracks of 1080 grade have been installed on Western DFC. Grade 880 rails have been installed on all lines of the Indian Railways and Eastern DFC which are indigenously built. Out of 1,506 km of Western DFC including Palanpur-Mehsana Chadotar section, about 49 per cent i.e. 734 km line has been opened for traffic whereas the 77 km stretch from Mehsana to Sanand is almost ready.
Automatic signaling system has been installed in DFC. To maintain the high speed of the goods trains, the distance between the two signals has been kept at two kilometres. The freight trains on Western DFC are operating at a speed of more than 75 to 100 kmph and the average speed is more than 65 kmph while the average speed of goods trains on Indian Railways normal lines is less than 25 kmph. Is.
The JICA-funded, western DFC’s heavy rail tracks will be from Japan only to ensure heavy haulage and high speed.
According to the DFCC (Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation), out of the total 2,843 km route of Eastern and Western DFC, more than 50 percent of the route work has been completed so far and 90 percent of the route is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. An additional 310 km is expected to be commissioned in October.
So far, 766 trains have been operated in Palanpur-Mehsana section with an average of 11 trains running daily. Along with modern signal and telecommunication systems, the fully electrified route of DFC will be equipped with an automatic train control system and modern accident prevention system. The land acquisition process for the DFC has been completed and about 10,000 hectares of land has been acquired for the project.
DFCC says barring a few crossings, there will be no level crossing to ensure smooth movement of goods trains in the entire section. DFC has 304 Rail Overbridges (ROBs) and 557 Rail Underbridges (RUBs) apart from 50 Rail Flyovers.
He said about the Mehsana Palanpur Chadotar section that a section of 62.15 km is between Mehsana to Palanpur and there is a link of 14.34 km from Palanpur to Chadotar. With the opening of this section, the movement of goods through these six ports namely Mundra, Kandla, Navlekhi, Jamnagar, Porbandar and Pipavav would become easier. It will cater to containerised movement of white goods, cement, fertilizers and milk, among other things connecting it to other parts of the country. WDFC is meant for carrying double stack container trains.
EDFC has seven project centers at Ambala, Meerut, Tundla, Prayagraj, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Kolkata, while WDFC has centers in Noida, Jaipur, Ajmer, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mumbai North and Mumbai South. Trial run was going on this route since last month and finally Prime Minister Narendra Modi today (30 September) dedicated the route to the nation for full freight service in this section.
