Bharat Rakshak

Off thread but..

Spain spends €258m to build trains too big for its tunnels

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/s ... 8748ff0255

.^^^
Something wrong with the way Maths is taught there. Navantia built submarines that were 100 tons overweight and had buoyancy issue.

arvin wrote:.^^^
Something wrong with the way Maths is taught there. Navantia built submarines that were 100 tons overweight and had buoyancy issue.

it took a hindu pm to reintroduce math to uk undergrad studies clearly western world mirrors the roman decadence

drnayar wrote:

arvin wrote:.^^^
Something wrong with the way Maths is taught there. Navantia built submarines that were 100 tons overweight and had buoyancy issue.

it took a hindu pm to reintroduce math to uk undergrad studies clearly western world mirrors the roman decadence

What rubbish! Educate yourself before making such comments. If not then bring it to UK thread and I'll be happy to educate you.

one question to the rail fans here..does the passengers capacity for each of shatabdi, rajdhani vary by route? Just trying to compile information..couldnt find the information..any pointers would be helpful

ArjunPandit wrote:one question to the rail fans here..does the passengers capacity for each of shatabdi, rajdhani vary by route? Just trying to compile information..couldnt find the information..any pointers would be helpful

Most of the time Indian Railways runs the same length of Shatabdi/RajDhani trains to each location. However if you read the link https://swarajyamag.com/infrastructure/ ... -at-lowest
you can see that Vande Bharat trains do have different occupancy rates. This is why Indian Railway's is developing different length Vande Bharat trains i.e. Standard Vande Bharat rake will have 16 coaches, and Vande Metro rakes will have 8 or 12 coaches and I suspect will be run on routes with lower occupancy rates.

https://youtu.be/3ZSGT9LJOAM

Modi Ji has found a Gem of a Minister

Railways to acquire new rolling stock worth Rs 3.14 trillion in FY24.

After a record budgetary allocation, the railways ministry has plans to acquire new rolling stock worth over Rs 3.14 trillion in the upcoming financial year, according to the national transporter’s annual rolling stock programme for 2023-24 (FY24).

This plan includes 300 Vande Metro trains, 1,000 eight-coach Vande Bharat trains, 35 hydrogen trains, and locomotives for freight augmentation in FY24, among other tentative items. Sources said priority assets to be procured in FY24 would cost close to Rs 1.9 trillion.

Though big-ticket items are expected to be brought out at a slower pace, production of some of them, such as Vande Metros and hydrogen trains, will be set in motion in FY24.

Between financial outgo for tenders, awarded contracts, and these new assets, the railways expect net capital expenditure on rolling stock at Rs 47,000 crore in the upcoming financial year.

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a Rs 2.4 trillion budgetary allocation for the ministry. While the railways will not have any borrowings from the market in the upcoming financial year, many of these new proposals have a percentage financed through debt.

“This is a tentative plan of what the railways has got financial approval for; therefore, the estimates and the financial structure of these procurements may not be exactly as mentioned in the programme. Moreover, large payments on these assets will mostly begin in FY25, where market borrowings may be used,” a senior railways official said.

While the national transporter’s focus was largely on the freight side owing to reduced passenger volumes during Covid-19, it has shifted its focus back on increasing passenger amenities and comfort.

One thousand eight-coach Vande Bharat trains will cost the railways Rs 65,000 crore, which the transporter is likely to finance from Rs 35,000 crore of budgetary funds and Rs 30,000 crore of debt. However, the plan has received only “token funding" of Rs 10,000 in the rolling stock estimates for FY24.

Railways plans to procure 10,000 Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches at Rs 27,500 crore, which is currently approved for an equal split between capital expenditure and borrowings.

Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had also announced Vande Metros, which he plans to roll out across the country for commuters to have a world-class inter-city shuttle-like experience. Three hundred rakes of these metros have been planned to be made for Rs 22,500 crore.

In the freight segment, the railways plans to procure 2,000 locomotives for Rs 36,000 crore. A tender for producing 9000 HP locomotives was recently awarded to Siemens.

Close to 50,000 advanced technology freight wagons and 51,000 regular freight wagons are also in the pipeline for the upcoming financial year. This is barely a year after it rolled out a plan to acquire 90,000 wagons to increase freight loading.

Under the National Rail Plan, the railways plans to have the highest modal share in the movement of goods by 2030, for which it will have to significantly invest in its infrastructure, experts said.

BIG INFRA PUSH
Rs 2.4 trn allocation for Railways in FY24 Budget with a focus on infrastructure development.

IN THE WORKS
1,000 eight-coach Vande Bharat trains to cost Rs 65,000 cr
2,000 locomotives for Rs 36,000 cr
10,000 LHB coaches to be bought for Rs 27,500 cr
300 Vande metros to cost Rs 22,500 cr
35 hydrogen trains, 50,000 advanced technology freight wagons, 51,000 regular freight wagons also in the pipeline

WHAT IS ROLLING STOCK?
Rolling stock includes trainsets, locomotives, coaches and other rail vehicles

The Dedicated Freight Corridors an Update.

EDFC: Out of the 940km on the main arm of the EDFC double lined electrified between Dadri to Son Nagar, 880km is finally operational as of Jan 2023. A huge burden is off the Howrah-Delhi line.

What remains: 20km section out of 50km of Kanpur bypass. Track linking for that 20km section completed yesterday. See video. 40km from Chunar to Mughalsarai out of which 20km left for track linking. See drone video. Both this 60km are targeted for completion March 2023 in 45 days.

Khurja to Sahnewal(Ludhiana) 400km single lined electrified on track for completion June 2023. Latest by Dec 2023 for sure. There are very long articles in another avatar of mine on the Internet.

WDFC: Rewari to Sanand(Ahmedabad) operational 850km. Palanpur on WDFC to Samikhiali Fully electrified and double lined and finally commissioned a month ago. This gives quick connectivity to Adani and Kandla ports. Pipavav ports run by Maersk is now running Pratigya Express with 55 hours guaranteed delivery of containers using WDFC of containers from NCR. Pratigya Express run by Maersk starts from Sonipat ICD(Inland Container Depot). DFC runs double stacked containers and all feeder lines to Pipavav, and to Kandla, Mundhra the OHE can accommodate double stacked containers.
Palanpur to Samikhiali doubling and electrification was an SPV betwen Kutch Rail Corp., Gujarat State, and RVNL and is a major feeder to the WDFC meeting it at Palanpur. Freight to WDFC takes a new bypass double line and completely avoids Palanpur yard
and IR and hops onto the WDFC towards Delhi NCR. So traffic from ports is speeding along. I expect transit times will come down further once Dadri to Rewari part of greenfield alignment WDFC is completed by June 2023.

Dadri to Vaitarna is expected to be done Dec 2023. Vaitarna to JNPT Tata Construction was kicked out for zero work, this is a useless company. After 1 month JICA brought pressure and had Tata re-instated. Thackerays also torpedoed WDFC on the MH section. So WDFC to JNPT will be finished by August 2024. In the meanwhile Gujarat ports are reaping benefits as business is moving to them since WDFC connectivity with them is finished and containers are moving really fast from NCR region.

End of the track linking phase Kanpur bypass, Signals and Telecom and OHE work left. Kanpur ring road will also come by here. This is near Sachendi village.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qNLmPy9B1o

Drone view DDU/Mughalsarai to Chunar 40km EDFC last remaining section for completion along with the completed Kanpur bypass sub-section 20km. Jeonathpur outside DDU is a very big intermodal hub, IW-1 water Varanasi port, EDFC/IR, Road NH 19, 44, 35.

https://youtu.be/CvXWev_FD-Y

While we see frustration in other threads some amazing work is going on in Railways . We can see huge excitement for Vande bharat trains as they are rolled out

@Vsunder saab why is edfc single stack as compared to double of wdfc? Googling did not help

Vips wrote:Railways to acquire new rolling stock worth Rs 3.14 trillion in FY24.

After a record budgetary allocation, the railways ministry has plans to acquire new rolling stock worth over Rs 3.14 trillion in the upcoming financial year, according to the national transporter’s annual rolling stock programme for 2023-24 (FY24).

This plan includes 300 Vande Metro trains, 1,000 eight-coach Vande Bharat trains, 35 hydrogen trains, and locomotives for freight augmentation in FY24, among other tentative items. Sources said priority assets to be procured in FY24 would cost close to Rs 1.9 trillion.

Though big-ticket items are expected to be brought out at a slower pace, production of some of them, such as Vande Metros and hydrogen trains, will be set in motion in FY24.

Between financial outgo for tenders, awarded contracts, and these new assets, the railways expect net capital expenditure on rolling stock at Rs 47,000 crore in the upcoming financial year.

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a Rs 2.4 trillion budgetary allocation for the ministry. While the railways will not have any borrowings from the market in the upcoming financial year, many of these new proposals have a percentage financed through debt.

“This is a tentative plan of what the railways has got financial approval for; therefore, the estimates and the financial structure of these procurements may not be exactly as mentioned in the programme. Moreover, large payments on these assets will mostly begin in FY25, where market borrowings may be used,” a senior railways official said.

While the national transporter’s focus was largely on the freight side owing to reduced passenger volumes during Covid-19, it has shifted its focus back on increasing passenger amenities and comfort.

One thousand eight-coach Vande Bharat trains will cost the railways Rs 65,000 crore, which the transporter is likely to finance from Rs 35,000 crore of budgetary funds and Rs 30,000 crore of debt. However, the plan has received only “token funding" of Rs 10,000 in the rolling stock estimates for FY24.

Railways plans to procure 10,000 Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches at Rs 27,500 crore, which is currently approved for an equal split between capital expenditure and borrowings.

Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had also announced Vande Metros, which he plans to roll out across the country for commuters to have a world-class inter-city shuttle-like experience. Three hundred rakes of these metros have been planned to be made for Rs 22,500 crore.

In the freight segment, the railways plans to procure 2,000 locomotives for Rs 36,000 crore. A tender for producing 9000 HP locomotives was recently awarded to Siemens.

Close to 50,000 advanced technology freight wagons and 51,000 regular freight wagons are also in the pipeline for the upcoming financial year. This is barely a year after it rolled out a plan to acquire 90,000 wagons to increase freight loading.

Under the National Rail Plan, the railways plans to have the highest modal share in the movement of goods by 2030, for which it will have to significantly invest in its infrastructure, experts said.

BIG INFRA PUSH
Rs 2.4 trn allocation for Railways in FY24 Budget with a focus on infrastructure development.

IN THE WORKS
1,000 eight-coach Vande Bharat trains to cost Rs 65,000 cr
2,000 locomotives for Rs 36,000 cr
10,000 LHB coaches to be bought for Rs 27,500 cr
300 Vande metros to cost Rs 22,500 cr
35 hydrogen trains, 50,000 advanced technology freight wagons, 51,000 regular freight wagons also in the pipeline

WHAT IS ROLLING STOCK?
Rolling stock includes trainsets, locomotives, coaches and other rail vehicles

I thought that 'Vande Metro' and 8 coach Vande Bharat Train were the same thing?

Will be very interested to see the roll out of the Vande Metro rakes.

Vande Metro is I think a desi version of the RRTS trainset (which is also made in India by Alstom). The 8-coach Vande Bharat train is still an inter-city train, just with less coaches to optimize for lower volume routes. The main difference between the two would be the interior layout with the RRTS being optimized for higher capacity over shorter distances and easier entry and exit.

Quite happy to see the faster rollout of VB trains.. they remind me of the limited express trains of Japan and the EMUs of UK that can easily go up to 140-150 kmph. Just hope they give easier names to remember. Simple names say Rohini, Ashwini, Vaishnavi etc etc 1,2,3 with each iteration will be great rather than Vande this and that… It’s anyway a nightmare to remember IR express train names

vsunder wrote:The Dedicated Freight Corridors an Update.

EDFC: Out of the 940km on the main arm of the EDFC double lined electrified between Dadri to Son Nagar, 880km is finally operational as of Jan 2023. A huge burden is off the Howrah-Delhi line.

What remains: 20km section out of 50km of Kanpur bypass. Track linking for that 20km section completed yesterday. See video. 40km from Chunar to Mughalsarai out of which 20km left for track linking. See drone video. Both this 60km are targeted for completion March 2023 in 45 days.

Khurja to Sahnewal(Ludhiana) 400km single lined electrified on track for completion June 2023. Latest by Dec 2023 for sure. There are very long articles in another avatar of mine on the Internet.

WDFC: Rewari to Sanand(Ahmedabad) operational 850km. Palanpur on WDFC to Samikhiali Fully electrified and double lined and finally commissioned a month ago. This gives quick connectivity to Adani and Kandla ports. Pipavav ports run by Maersk is now running Pratigya Express with 55 hours guaranteed delivery of containers using WDFC of containers from NCR. Pratigya Express run by Maersk starts from Sonipat ICD(Inland Container Depot). DFC runs double stacked containers and all feeder lines to Pipavav, and to Kandla, Mundhra the OHE can accommodate double stacked containers.
Palanpur to Samikhiali doubling and electrification was an SPV betwen Kutch Rail Corp., Gujarat State, and RVNL and is a major feeder to the WDFC meeting it at Palanpur. Freight to WDFC takes a new bypass double line and completely avoids Palanpur yard
and IR and hops onto the WDFC towards Delhi NCR. So traffic from ports is speeding along. I expect transit times will come down further once Dadri to Rewari part of greenfield alignment WDFC is completed by June 2023.

Dadri to Vaitarna is expected to be done Dec 2023. Vaitarna to JNPT Tata Construction was kicked out for zero work, this is a useless company. After 1 month JICA brought pressure and had Tata re-instated. Thackerays also torpedoed WDFC on the MH section. So WDFC to JNPT will be finished by August 2024. In the meanwhile Gujarat ports are reaping benefits as business is moving to them since WDFC connectivity with them is finished and containers are moving really fast from NCR region.

End of the track linking phase Kanpur bypass, Signals and Telecom and OHE work left. Kanpur ring road will also come by here. This is near Sachendi village.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qNLmPy9B1o

Drone view DDU/Mughalsarai to Chunar 40km EDFC last remaining section for completion along with the completed Kanpur bypass sub-section 20km. Jeonathpur outside DDU is a very big intermodal hub, IW-1 water Varanasi port, EDFC/IR, Road NH 19, 44, 35.

https://youtu.be/CvXWev_FD-Y

Thank you Sir.

Bart S wrote:Vande Metro is I think a desi version of the RRTS trainset (which is also made in India by Alstom). The 8-coach Vande Bharat train is still an inter-city train, just with less coaches to optimize for lower volume routes. The main difference between the two would be the interior layout with the RRTS being optimized for higher capacity over shorter distances and easier entry and exit.

I think you are right. Every time I look at a conventional VB coach I can see so much more capacity that can be added without increasing the coach length etc. I just wished Indian media would ask the Railways Minister these sorts of questions but media tend to be a bit differential in India and don't ask follow up questions.

I am actually quite excited about seeing the roll out of the Vande Metro rakes.

Wonderful presentation by The Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering

Atmavik wrote:While we see frustration in other threads some amazing work is going on in Railways . We can see huge excitement for Vande bharat trains as they are rolled out

@Vsunder saab why is edfc single stack as compared to double of wdfc? Googling did not help

There are three reasons this happened. People if at all only talk of one. The three reasons are

1. Historical 2. Nature of the Freight carried by EDFC 3. The downgrading of Kolkata port.

1. Historical

The History of Railway electrification in India appears a bit in the article I wrote elsewhere, which is attached to the end of this post with a tongue in cheek title. I urge you to read that article. To summarize a bit what I say in that article is that true Railway electrification began in Eastern India in 1958-1959 with 25 kv AC traction. No doubt 1500V DC existed in the Mumbai area but 25kV which became the standard for IR started on Eastern Railway to better evacauate coal from mines and ore in the Dhanbad--Asansol belt and supply steel plants in Durgapur. This area saw rapid electrification at a rate seen by no other zone. So quickly masts were erected at standard height around 5m. You can gauge this by the fact that ER, SER, East Coast Railway attained 100% electrification so quickly when the Government went in for 100% electrification.
Now what does this mean. It means that all the feeder lines to the EDFC were already electrified with masts set at standard 5.5m height. Now let us look at the other side. Gujarat, Khambahat, Rajasthan was a maze of single lined MG, NG tracks. Delhi to Ahmedabad was a MG track in the 1990s. Slowly they got gauge converted. Then when the DFCs were mooted and the policy of 100% electrification accepted in the last 10 years all these lines to ports, the feeder lines to the WDFC got electrified from scratch and could be built to double stack container traffic standards. Look today to Western Railway, stands at 73% electrification and Northwestern Railway at 60% electrification. These are the WDFC feeders and they are still a work in progress. If Eastern railway had minimal electrification you could build the feeders to high mast standards today. But to change all the extensive network of electrification in the East to high mast so all feeders can bring in double stack container is just prohibitive in terms of cost.

The feeder lines for the WDFC are all in Gujarat, none in MH which does have all standard height OHE. The last feeder line going South on the WDFC is Hazira port near Surat. Hazira is petrochemicals and so does not need high mast. Then there no ports south of Hazira till the line ends at JNPT which needs thus no feeder. A port has been proposed at Palghar in MH, but since WDFC is passing so close to the coast here, a short feeder at high mast can be easily built. Maersk for example paid some of the cost to build high mast OHE from Pipavav port to Surendranagar to connect to WR double tracks to Sanand and the WDFC. Now they run Pratigya Express with a guaranteed 55 hour transit time from Delhi NCR to Pipavav via the WDFC.

2. Nature of the Freight The EDFC mainly carries, Coal, Ore, Stones, Fertilizer and Ore. That is bulk goods. So the need to be equipped to carry double stack containers is not that great and so again the need to modify existing electric traction equipment is minimal.

3. Kolkata Port Kolkata port has fast lost its significance as a container port. Haldia is there with Petrochemicals which does not require double stacked containers and Paradip in Orissa is suurounded by a network of lines equipped with standard height OHE. Thus again the feeder lines from Paradip to the EDFC cannot transport containers that are double stacked.

Again I think a decision has been taken due to the non-cooperative nature of the Mamata Banerjee govt. and increasing effort to complete the Land acquisition process in WB, Land acquisition being a state subject, the EDFC will be terminated just inside the WB border at Bandel and will not terminate at Dankuni 100km away.

This should not be taken lightly. Uddhav Thackeray came close to derailing the WDFC with zero help in acquiring land in the Vaitarna--JNPT section. Even today 5 patches of land totaling 1.73km between Vaitarna and JNPT is holding up this last section and the completion date is pushed to June 2024 due to a combination of poor performance by Tata and its Japanese collaborator Mitsui(JICA had insisted that Indian firms have to work in tandem with a Japanese firm on the WDFC, so L&T and Sojitz for example who are doing Rewari to Makarpura and Dadri to Rewari) and this LA issue.

OK Here is the article I wrote, which explains the history a bit more of Railway electrification in India. There were pictures that went with the article. On the original page where the article appeared, the pictures are there. They were taken by me at the Rail Museum in Chanakyapuri in New Delhi.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Why do Electric Loco Pilots(Drivers) Speak French on Indian Railways??


Well not quite, but indeed they use French terms. Before that a bit of History. Electric locomotives were introduced onto Indian Railways in the Mumbai area in 1929 with 1500Volts DC(Direct Current) locomotives manufactured by the Swiss locomotive works and Vulcan loco works. These locomotives had long snouts in front of them and were called "Crocodiles" in Europe and "Khekhada(crabs)" by the local railwaymen in the Mumbai area. Kalyan electric loco shed was the first electric loco shed in India, housing these 1500V DC(Direct Current) locos. Remarkably these crocodiles were still visible doing shunting duties in the Mumbai area till the early 2000s and DC power remained in the Mumbai area till 2015 when finally it gave way to all AC (Alternating Current)power.

Here is a picture I took of a crocodile on display at the Indian Railway museum in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. It is the first crocodile to be commissioned. The loco is named after Sir Leslie Wilson a Governor of Mumbai and the GIP emblazoned on the livery stands for The Great Indian Peninsular Railway, the forerunner of Central Railway CR today.

Post independence, in 1958, the Govt. of India (GOI) approached SNCF(Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fer) the French National rail carrier for advice on future electrification of Indian railways. Wisely SNCF advised GOI to run AC powered electric locos which will run on 25,000 volts(25 kilo volts, 25kv). AC powered locos have superior tractive ability and are ideal to haul heavy freight laden with coal from the Jharia coalmines around Dhanbad on the Grand Chord, connecting Asansol and Mughalsarai now Deen Dayal Upadhyay Jn.(DDU) Thus Eastern Railway became the first railway zone where electrification started with 25kv AC. In 1959 a short section, Howrah to Seoraphuli on the Howrah--Bardhaman(Burdwan) line saw EMU, suburban passenger train units operational and the electric network spread on the Grand Chord to DDU from Howrah and over time to Kanpur and Delhi by 1976. It is now understandable why French terminology began to permeate operational manuals on Indian railways and became the lingo loco pilots used and still use on Indian railways. The early electric AC locomotives from 1959 onwards were Hitachi, Japanese built locos before Chittaranjan Loco works started building Indian variants.

Now that we have the history of AC(alternating current) traction, let us understand a bit the mechanics of how an AC electric loco runs and then we will understand the French words loco pilots use on Indian Railways. First power is manufactured at a power station and to minimize the loss of electricity by heat while sending it down a wire, it is sent at 132,000 volts to a substation along the tracks. These substations trackside are called TSSs or traction substations in railway parlance. Here the voltage is stepped down to 25,000 volts from 132,000volts and fed into the overhead wires from which the locos draw their power via the long pole like structures on the roof of a loco called a Pantograph. Now there is a serious problem. Current from a power station is sent as 3 phase or naively over 3 wires. But look, the loco makes contact with only ONE overhead wire. So there is a strange situation. Think of a person being pulled and only pulled in one direction. The person will be unbalanced. So if current is drawn from only one phase, there will be a serious mismatch at the power station and the generators will be damaged. Current has to be drawn UNIFORMLY from all three wires uniformly or else the entire grid will collapse leading to chaos. So how is this done? It is done by what are called NEUTRAL SECTIONS. Sections of the track are divided into 40km sections. Wire 1 feeds Section 1, Wire 2 feeds Section2 and Wire 3 feeds section 3. So the Load on the power station equipment is UNIFORM. But wait you cannot connect Section 1 with Section 2 and so on, you will have a massive short circuit. So what is done is that these sections are isolated from each other with a short length of about 10m of insulated material so that electricity of each phase never leaks into an adjacent section.
So when an electric loco is moving along on Indian Railways the assistant loco pilot (ALP) usually who has the responsibility of watching for all track side signs, caution warnings etc will suddenly see the sign of this diamond on a blue background.



This means that a Neutral section(separating wire 1 from wire 2 say) is approaching and is 500m away and he will warn the pilot by saying "Neutral Section 500m". At that point, the loco pilo and ALP will start shutting down, the blower units on the Loco(that keep the electronics cool, like the little fan on your laptop that starts up when your laptop gets too hot), they will also lower the Pantograph so that it ceases making contact with the overhead wire and the loco now essentially has no power being supplied to it, and is coasting on its own momentum. They will also pass a second sign of a Red diamond on a white background similar to the one displayed in my attachment with 250m written underneath, that means the loco is 250 m away from the Neutral section and is further warning to the drivers to get their act together. Soon they will see the sign in the middle of my attachment. When it is seen, the ALP will call out "DJ open" and that Voila is the French word, which means Disjoncteur open or in English, Circuit Breaker open. Perhaps the French loco pilot says Disjoncteur ouvert. This tells the loco pilot that the ALP has thrown the circuit breakers open. This act really and truly disconnects the loco from the electric network and completely isolates it from any power source. Now the loco is a dead shell hurtling along. Next comes the last sign in my attachment, which means the loco is past the neutral section and now truly in a section which is being powered by Wire 2. Now the ALP will say "DJ Closed" or Disjoncteur closed, so the circuit breakers will be closed, the pantograph raised, blowers and electronics turned on and the loco again begins to draw power from the overhead wires and the process has to be repeated after 40km when one hits the next section and you have to cross a neutral section.
So the Indian electric loco pilot does not know Disjoncteur but DJ is just that and a reminder of the SNCF/French influence on training manuals in the 1959 era when the French developed and wrote the manuals for electric train drivers on Indian Railways, and so the French terminology and Francophone speak on Indian railways.
Of course there is a very small possibility that the loco stops in a neutral section. Then help is needed to push the train underneath wires that have electricity flowing through it. This is a very rare event.
DC operated trains still exist. Many of the metros Kanpur, Bangalore etc are powered by 750 volt DC power, that the train picks up through a third rail running parallel to the tracks. Third rail systems are easy to maintain than overhead wire systems and DC powered trains accelerate quicker than AC ones, and so are ideal for Metro operations where load is not important but quick starting and accelerating is paramount for Metro trains.

With Vande this and Vande that, it might be wise to remember that most routes on IR are unfit to run trains at any speed higher than 110kmph. For example Vande Bharat cannot run at its advertised speed of 130kmph on the Chennai to Bangalore to Mysore route. Only in the past three months, SR after undertaking a series of engineering works, replacing concrete sleepers by heavier density concrete sleepers with a curve in the middle, upping the density of rails to 60kg/m etc upped the MPS(maximum permissible speed) on the Chennai to Jolarpet section to a satisfactory 125 kmph. There was a S curve inside Jolarpet station and over the pandemic when traffic had come to a standstill, this curve was turned into a bend and the speed upped to 110 kmph. So even VB has to slow down while passing Jolarpet.

Southwestern Railway takes over from Jolarpet to Bangalore and here VB just travels like an ordinary train. SWR claims to finish the engineering works by September this year, replacing 50kg/m rails by 60kg/m rails, heavier sleepers, removing British era stone culverts by concrete pre-stressed structures and so on. VB can never go at its advertised speed of 130kmph between Bangalore and Mysore as there are a number of sharp curves. Patronage from Mysore for VB has also been dismal. A few days ago CPRO SWR Aneesh Hegde tweeted that SWR has finally upped sections of track with MPS of 60/70/90 kmph to 110 kmph on 800km of track.

SWR wishes to introduce VB on its Bangalore to Hubli and then onto Dharwad route. Here again the line has to be doubled first, then electrified and more importantly a number of very sharp curves removed. As far as doubling goes only 20km is finally left to double on the 412km route between Bangalore and Hubli with completion end of next month, when Bangalore to Hubli will be doubled. Electrification remains between Tolahunse to Hubli 155km, Bangalore to Tolahunse is fully electrified and doubled.

A number of curves like this one between Kundgol and Hubli were straightened from a 2.8 degree curvature to 1.6 degree curvature to accommodate VB in the future. This particular curve was straightened Jan 27-29 after a line block was undertaken. But other curves remain like near Savanur. Straightening curves sometimes involves land acquisition.
A lot of the savings in time is being accomplished by having fewer stops on VB and lighter rakes that accelerate faster. But average speed still is quite low and far from even 120 kmph leave alone 130 kmph. Here is curve straightening near Hubli to up speeds.

https://twitter.com/RailMinIndia/status ... _c34EtAAAA

India currently has very little capacity to make forged wheels necessary for High speed rail like VB and Bullet trains of the future. It was importing wheel sets for VB from the Ukraine and the war there has proven to be a dent. China also supplied wheel sets and when the situation became dire forged wheels were sourced from Poland. Amazingly all the Rail wheel factories like at Yellahanka outside Bangalore have been only churning out cast wheels which are no good for higher speeds. I suppose IR has now woken up and roped in Bharat Forge etc to manufacture wheel sets in India.

Let us try a little home experiment and then I shall explain the significance of this experiment. Expand your consciousness some orders of magnitude after doing this experiment all the yadda, yadda that goes on in the Kaveri engine thread about single crystal this and single crystal that is child's play. Here is the experiment:

Take a very commonplace item found in most households, a paperclip. Notice the paperclip has a tongue inside. Lift it up and rock the tongue backwards and forwards. What do you notice? You will notice it becomes stiffer. After some time it will break.

Why did the tongue become stiffer? Because with the simple act of rocking the tongue back and forth, you created a pinch where the tongue joins the rest of the clip. The pinch forced the grain boundaries of the metal to align themselves a certain way and gave the metal stiffness.

And that is the key. If you pour molten metal into a mould to make a railway wheel, you might not have any control of the cooling process and the interface between the liquid metal and the solid part. So metal is being deposited in some uncontrolled way esp. if you do not have fine control of the cooling process. In mathematics and Material Science this interface is called a Free boundary. Grain structure here can be very complicated and it is along these dislocations and imperfections of the grain boundaries that shock and stresses propagate. Unfortunately if the grain orientation is such that it allows stresses to propagate in a rapidly turning wheel, the wheel will crack easily and fail. So the key is to manipulate grain boundaries so that their orientation is not conducive for the stress to propagate along the grain boundary. Since casting a wheel forbids you to control the grain boundary, some other means of manipulating the grain boundary must be found. Clearly the paperclip experiment indicates that grain boundaries can be manipulated. And indeed forging does that, the metal is heated to a point close to melting say 20% near it and then hammered and shaped so that the grain boundaries of the metal have certain orientations that are not conducive to the propagation of stresses. This gives the product far greater mechanical strength than a product that has been cast. So forged railway wheels are far superior and more expensive to manufacture than cast railway wheels. All VB wheels are forged.

Thanks @vsunder saab for the detailed response. on the VB speed issue i think it will take us time to realize its full potential but its a good start.

vsunder wrote:India currently has very little capacity to make forged wheels necessary for High speed rail like VB and Bullet trains of the future. It was importing wheel sets for VB from the Ukraine and the war there has proven to be a dent. China also supplied wheel sets and when the situation became dire forged wheels were sourced from Poland. Amazingly all the Rail wheel factories like at Yellahanka outside Bangalore have been only churning out cast wheels which are no good for higher speeds. I suppose IR has now woken up and roped in Bharat Forge etc to manufacture wheel sets in India.

Let us try a little home experiment and then I shall explain the significance of this experiment. Expand your consciousness some orders of magnitude after doing this experiment all the yadda, yadda that goes on in the Kaveri engine thread about single crystal this and single crystal that is child's play. Here is the experiment:

Take a very commonplace item found in most households, a paperclip. Notice the paperclip has a tongue inside. Lift it up and rock the tongue backwards and forwards. What do you notice? You will notice it becomes stiffer. After some time it will break.

Why did the tongue become stiffer? Because with the simple act of rocking the tongue back and forth, you created a pinch where the tongue joins the rest of the clip. The pinch forced the grain boundaries of the metal to align themselves a certain way and gave the metal stiffness.

And that is the key. If you pour molten metal into a mould to make a railway wheel, you might not have any control of the cooling process and the interface between the liquid metal and the solid part. So metal is being deposited in some uncontrolled way esp. if you do not have fine control of the cooling process. In mathematics and Material Science this interface is called a Free boundary. Grain structure here can be very complicated and it is along these dislocations and imperfections of the grain boundaries that shock and stresses propagate. Unfortunately if the grain orientation is such that it allows stresses to propagate in a rapidly turning wheel, the wheel will crack easily and fail. So the key is to manipulate grain boundaries so that their orientation is not conducive for the stress to propagate along the grain boundary. Since casting a wheel forbids you to control the grain boundary, some other means of manipulating the grain boundary must be found. Clearly the paperclip experiment indicates that grain boundaries can be manipulated. And indeed forging does that, the metal is heated to a point close to melting say 20% near it and then hammered and shaped so that the grain boundaries of the metal have certain orientations that are not conducive to the propagation of stresses. This gives the product far greater mechanical strength than a product that has been cast. So forged railway wheels are far superior and more expensive to manufacture than cast railway wheels. All VB wheels are forged.

the tender was issued in sep 2022 and hopefully one of the pvt scetor firm gets it

https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/indi ... eed-trains

One of the serious issues facing IR is that a lot of the track is laid manually. Manual track laying is slow about 200-300 m of track can be laid in a day manually. Worse manual laying of track can never accomplish superior track geometry to give a superior ride. For a superior ride, the spacing between the sleepers must be precise at around 70mm. Track laying on the DFCs have been done using NTC machines (New Track Construction machines) which lay 1.6km of track. The track geometry achieved using NTC machines is far superior to anything laid manually. Blanketing of the track bed is 0.5m on the DFCs which is better than 0.2-0.3 m on IR. This cushions the rails further and prevents leakage of the sub base into the gravel. Furthermore 260m long head hardened rails are used to minimize the number of welds and so the number of weld defects are less. Destressing machines have also been utilized on the DFCs. Mobile welding units supplied by Holland Corp are also standard on the DFCs.

Each NTC machine costs 10 million USD and on all DFCs there are 6 of them at work. Some of them have been imported from HARSCO a US company and some through Plasser another major rail equipment manufacturer. Plasser tamping machines have been in use for some time on IR. Towards this end, Plasser has opened a plant in Vadodara to build various types of track maintenance machines for IR and for export. The plant became operational in 2019.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Sahilinfra2/ ... 9762924548

I do not think it manufactures NTC machines like the ones on the DFCs but a wide array of track replacement machines, tampers etc are being manufactured at the Vadodara plant. Of late DFCs have acquired rail grinding machines from Loram Corp. USA which are on test. Such rail grinding prolongs the life of rails. Eventually such machines will be needed in numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efH491xogJc

.
Short video - worth watching and sharing.

A Cautionary Tale of what once happened on Indian Railways and what can happen again. An Article I wrote elsewhere on the Internet.

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The Khanna Railway Accident and Hydrogen Embrittlement

One of the major railway disasters to hit Indian Railways occurred Nov 26, 1998 in the wee hours at 3.15am near Khanna, a small mandi town in Punjab(near Sirhind) on the major route between Ambala and Ludhiana. 212 people lost their lives. Golden Temple Mail(formerly Frontier Mail) from Mumbai Central to Amritsar 12903 traveling on the Down line towards Amritsar, derailed and 6 coaches fell on to the Up line adjacent. Within minutes a speeding Jammu Tawi to Sealdah Express 13152, rammed into the obstructing coaches on the Up line. Being 3.15 am most of the passengers were asleep and the resulting accident created immense panic and confusion. The early hours impeded mobilization of emergency and medical assistance. The cold weather also was not conducive to rescue operations. All together there were 2500 passengers on both trains.

A commission of inquiry found that the initial derailment of the Golden Temple Mail was caused by a broken rail which later metallurgical analysis revealed was due to Hydrogen Embrittlement.

What is this phenomenon of Hydrogen Embrittlement? The phenomenon was known already in the 19th century to steelmakers and today the phenomenon is still not thoroughly understood. What is known is that atomic Hydrogen which is the smallest atom in Nature, easily permeates steel, Cobalt and other metals. Atomic Hydrogen does not occur naturally and Hydrogen only occurs as a molecule in Nature. But atomic hydrogen is produced during chemical reactions that take place during the steel making process, by corrosion which was the norm on the Railways due to open defecation on tracks by nearby locals and by the open discharge toilets of trains 25 years ago. Another potent cause is the haphazard ways welding is done on the railways by not ensuring clean and MOISTURE FREE electrodes in the welding process when track joints are welded. All these introduce atomic hydrogen into steel. This hydrogen allows cracks and stress boundaries to propagate easily, leading eventually to failure of the rail and a catastrophic rupture which leads to rails separating as happened at Khanna. Proper adherence to process and quality control at the steel plant if not followed also leads to the introduction of atomic hydrogen in steel and this in turn leads to Hydrogen embrittlement.

You might enjoy looking at the various pictures of propagating cracks in steel in these pictures that accompany the article on Hydrogen Embrittlement in the wikipedia entry. One hopes that metallurgical quality controls at Steel plants that supply rails to the Railways are stricter and tighter and welding processes have a more strict control process so that clean, dry electrodes are used in welding rails together or clean equipment is used in the alternative thermite process for welding rails and the lessons of Khanna have been learned and will never be repeated ever again on Indian railways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement

One hopes that mobile welding units like supplied by Holland Corporation for the DFCs are the norm going forward where precise control is maintained on the rail welding process to give strong, clean joints and with 260m rails a minimal amount of welds are required. As speeds start climbing higher to 130kmph a catastrophic failure of welds in conjunction with rolling stock with light aluminum bodies will cause untold carnage and jugaad welding just does not cut ice anymore.

European railways have decades of experience in laying and maintaining high speed tracks. A partnership with French SNCF Réseau will be of great help instead of some American company.

BTW a series of derailments happened in the US including a huge disaster when a tanker train carrying vinyl derailed and caused highly toxic spills and fires this week.

Here is the reality check. This is what counts as far as I am concerned.

1. DFCs

EDFC, Son Nagar to Dadri to open end March 2023. Khurja to Pilkhani single line and Pilkhani to Ludhiana Target date of completion June 2023, looks tough but Dec 2023 likely. All bridges over rivers done, all road over bridges done. Only one rail over rail flyover left, over Delhi--Shamli--Saharanpur line. Khurja to Ludhiana 400km, track work incomplete between Ambala and Rajpura and between Meerut and Saharanpur

WDFC: Rewari to Sanand operational. Sanand--Makarpura(Vadodara) Dec 2023, Makarpura to Vaitarna June 2023, Dadri to Rewari greenfield alignment target is March 2023, impossible lots of work left, possibly Sept 2023.

Vaitarna to JNPT: Ram Bharose, all sorts of TDCs come and go, dismal state of earthworks. from nothing on sections to a little bit.

Total operational distance on both DFC: 1724 km, Dadri to JNPT is 1504km and EDFC is 1337km excluding Son Nagar to Dankuni which will never get built at best to Bandel just inside WB border but no tenders nothing yet for this part so after 6 years??


2. Bullet Train

Overall Physical Progress: 25.63%

Gujarat
Overall 32.05%
Civil Works: 53.47%

Maharashtra
Overall:13.37%

Pile work: 242.18 km
Pier work: 140.68 km
30.24 Km Girders launched
320 m 1st River Bridge on Par river is completed.

3. Jiribam--Imphal(Manipur) line

91% complete. Major bridge is the world's tallest at 141m open web girder bridge at Noney. Completion date Dec 2023.

4. Sairang--Bairabi line to Aizawl, Mizoram


82% complete as of Nov 2022, 52 km line. Completion date is March 2023, but not possible. 23 tunnels, 4 stations Sairang is near the capital Aizawl. Maybe again end of this year.

4. Sivok to Rangpo line.

The most important strategically as Sivok is near Gangtok(Sikkim). Most of the line is tunnels and even stations are inside tunnels.
51% of work completed, 25km of tunneling work complete. Dec 2023 target for completion which is impossible.

45 km long, out of which 39km is tunnels. 14 tunnels, 17 bridges and 5 stations.

5. Dimapur to Zubza(Kohima) line. Connecting Nagaland is proving difficult as the Nagaland Govt is not cooperating with LA. Line has just reached Shokhuvi inside Nagaland. 82 km line, 17 tunnels out of which 3 are ready, remaining 14 just mobilization of resources has taken place, no real movement.

Meghalaya the worst as the Khasi Students Assoctiation is creating all sorts of hurdles to connect Shillong to the IR network, will take a decade.

6. Rishikesh--Karnaprayag Line 125km, 104km inside tunnels. 12 stations, 35 bridges, and 17 tunnels. 33% complete and 83km of tunneling work complete. Target Dec 2024.


10,000+ crores has been given to NEFR for completion of projects in the Northeast, in this budget.

vsunder saar, great to see you back and thanks a million for all the updates.

@Nachiket thanks

Project allocation after this budget for Northeast
2023-24 budget:
Manipur line - 800 cr allocation
Nagaland line - 1100 cr allocation
Mizoram line - 915 cr allocation
Sikkim line - 2250 cr allocation

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Completion Percentages of Lines to Northeast State Capitals.

Manipur
Jiribam-Imphal: 92.67%

Meghalaya
Tetelia-Byrnihat: 80.56%(these guys are still not relenting and agitating building a line to Shillong, Byrnihat is just on the Assam to Meghalaya border, the people of this state are freeloaders and use Assam economy for everything).

Mizoram
Bhairabi-Sairang: 84.91%

Sikkim
Sivok-Rangpo: 51.45%

Nagaland
Dimapur-Kohima: 29.65%

*As on 31st Dec’22
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Breakthrough on the longest tunnel T -11 On Sivok--Rangpo (Sikkim) line. This longest tunnel is 3205m in length. 39km out of 45km line is in tunnels. 67% of tunneling work is over. 6/14 tunnels are complete. Breakthrough occurred Jan 24, 2023.


https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617852638640631811

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Sivok-Rangpo New BG Rail Line Project in Sikkim.
Progress (as on 31.01.23): Total length 45km

Overall Physical Progress: 51.1%

Tunnel Mining works: 26.32 km out of 39km.
Piling work: 19,891 m
Pier work: 493 m
Earthwork: 4.5Lcum
Minor Bridge-5 nos

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The Problem in Meghalaya, Local Bodies, Thwart Rail connectivity to Shillong

https://theprint.in/india/railway-expan ... ad/821960/

EDFC on the UP Punjab section Khurja to Ludhiana. Entire route of EDFC 400km in Punjab to Khurja (where it joins the main arm of the EDFC) is single lined electrified due to unavailability of land in Punjab and Haryana and Western UP near Meerut.

Khurja to Mansurpur (near Muzzafarnagar) this is full of Sugar factories. Track laying over, tracks not packed, OHE work, signals and new DFC stations incomplete. ROBs in a few places incomplete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iATvfynLsQw

After Mansurpur EDFC takes a 42km greenfield alignment avoiding Muzzafarnagar and Deoband towns. So you cannot see EDFC from IR tracks till after Deoband at Talheri Buzurg between Deoband and Saharanpur. Rejoins running alongside IR tracks after Deoband near Talheri Buzurg. Next video is Talheri Buzurg to Saharanpur. Bridges across Hindon and Dhamola both seasonal streams complete. Only Rail over rail bridge at Tapri Jn over Delhi to Saharnpur line waiting to be launched and earthworks associated with this RoR bridge incomplete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8V1or0Z_XI

EDFC works adjacent to Saharanpur yard incomplete. Pilkhani is 10km from Saharanpur. This ends Package 1 Khurja to Pilkhani.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvYBrILw-9M

Package 2 Pilkhani to Ludhiana, all bridges done, all rail over rail flyovers done , ROBs done. Track linking left between Ambala and Rajpura and small pieces near Ambala and Yamunanagar. Track linking finished in Punjab: Ludhiana---Khanna---Sirhind----Rajpura. OHE work, signals and station buildings in progress here. GMR construction handling it.

Bangalore

Carmelaram to Heelalige, doubling CRS on the Bangalore to Hosur/Electronics City to be done in 5 days, Feb 20th,10.5km. Part of the suburban rail for Bangalore. Bangalore to Hosur is being doubled.

Bangalore Cantt station to be re-developed as a world class station, renders are on the net, old heritage facade will be incorporated in the refurbishing. 45 crores allotted and contract given after tendering.

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/ben ... 19126.html

In June last year PM Modi inaugurated a new rail terminal at Bangalore: Sir Visvesvarayya rail terminal in Bangalore which is taking some of the load off Bangalore city station

https://www.financialexpress.com/infras ... i/2567699/

All lines around Bangalore are electrified including to BIA airport which is still single lined but electrified.

Bangalore to Mumbai is fully doubled and electrified except for a 40km section which is single electrified Penukonda to Dharmavaram, under doubling with Dec 2024 completion tenders called in Sept 2022.

Bangalore to Hubli will be doubled next month and electrified by July 2023. Bangalore to Belgaum will be doubled next month and electrified by July 2023. They want VB to Belagavi(Belgaum) from Bangalore.

Doubling has hit a snag in Goa with church groups protesting and SC has placed an order forbidding doubling in the ghat section near Dudhsagar Falls. Electrification has been allowed. So Vasco-da Gama to Kulem will be doubled and electrified. Then Single electrified line to Tinaighat. Tinaighat onwards to Hubli is FEDL already.

Thank you for your posts vsunder garu, especially on the French connection

Wonder how they manage 3 phase and pantograph with high speed trains like Vande Bharat or TGV ! Is the pantograph just disconnected and reconnected electronically and automated using some kind of marker blocks on the wires before switching phases?!

France mostly laid new tracks when TGV network was developed, was judged to be much simpler than upgrading tracks because curves and gradient limitations cannot be fixed anyways. Amazing stuff done in the 70s, 80s and extended in 90s and 2000s!

I'm from a railway family and have always loved trains. Lucky to experience high end in France and Europe and see rapid progress being made in India now!

@Cyrano: I think there is a misconception here. VB and the entire IR network draws power as a single phase at 25kV. This is simply because of the mechanical constraint that a pantograph can only make contact with a single wire and not three wires. What does happen is that 25KV is stepped down inside the loco by a transformer and then converted to DC.

Now one can follow a route where this DC current is fed to the traction motors like in the older WAG-7 freight locos or passenger WAP-4 elocos. Or alternatively, the DC by a system of inverters is converted to 3 phase AC inside the loco and then fed to the traction motors as 3 phase AC. The traction motor is indeed 3 phase, but the current is being supplied as a single phase. One has to go through contortions of converting to DC and then AC to create 3 phase. All these electronics need blowers, power rectifiers etc to be kept cool. All of have to be disconnected when traveling over a neutral section as I said above.

The WAP-7 and newer elocos like WAG-9 or the brand new Alstom's WAG-12 run on three phase AC traction motors. But it is a complicated process to convert the single phase AC drawn from traction wires due to a mechanical constraint of the pantograph unable to make contact with 3 distinct wires and then make 3 phase AC out of it. I have given you the idea how it is done with a DC intermediate step.

Can we use a sleight of hand, yes one can and use 2 phase and this is the new technology implemented on the DFCs using auto-transformers and tapping them judiciously. This 2 phase system has superior tractive effort but not found elsewhere on IR yet. How do you get 2 phase while the pantograph makes contact with a single wire and not two distinct wires? I will not explain this trick, but leave you to ponder over the schematics in this write up and details therein

https://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-elec2.html

Autotransformers are sophisticated and expensive but now installed in all DFC traction substations. IR tried a pilot two phase system on the freight heavy Katni-Bina route in 1990s but did not implement it systemwide. It will involve replacing the equipment systemwide with autotransformers to convert single phase 1x25kv to 2x25kv. To feed 3x25kv directly to a loco, using a single overhead catenary wire, well if someone finds a way and patents it, they will become very rich!!! Mechanically not possible with a single wire in the catenary.

Whether it is France, Fiji or Outer Mongolia, you cannot send 3 phase AC over a single wire. You cannot just use one phase and not the other phases, this will create imbalances in the generating system. The load on all three phases has to be equitable and thus the neutral sections to isolate one phase from another every 40km. You will find neutral sections in any OHE system in the world.

Odisha’s most-awaited Khurda Road – Balangir rail line project gets forest clearance certificate.



Indian Railways‘ much-awaited Khurda Road – Balangir Rail Line project has finally received the forest clearance certificate. The move comes after the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has expressed gratitude to the Prime Minister and the Union Minister.

In a tweet, Vaishnaw said, “Thanks to PM @narendramodi Ji and @byadavbjp Ji for giving forest permission for the remaining 68 Km section on Khurda Road – Bolangir new line.” The Railway Minister further added that the tenders are being issued and will be finalized soon.

This new line project will build another rail link between western and coastal Odisha, connecting six districts in its route – Balangir, Sonepur, Phulbani, Boudh, Nayagarh, and Khurda.

The Khurda Road – Balangir Rail Line project was sanctioned in FY 1994-95. However, the project got delayed due to many reasons such as Court Cases, Forest clearance, etc. The forest clearance and working permission were pending for 1469 Acs of forest land in between Dasapalla and Purunakatak (Km 112 – Km 180).

Since 2014-15, the rail line project has been speeded up. Of the 301 km, only a 115 km stretch of the rail line has been commissioned – Khurda Road to Nuagaon (90 km) and Bolangir to Jharatarabha (25 km). The East Coast Railway has targeted for commissioning Nuagaon to Daspalla from Khurda Road end and Jharatarabha to Khambeswarpali from Bolangir end in the current fiscal.

Nuagaon – Dasapalla section
The 15.5 km long stretch between Nuagaon and Dasapalla has been targeted to be completed by March 2023. The stretch has 57 minor and 3 major bridges along with 15 RUBs (Road Under Bridges), and 4 ROBs (Road Over Bridges).

Jhartarbha-Khambeswarpalli-Sonepur section
The 21.70 km long stretch is set to be completed by March 2023. Currently, the work is in progress between Buguda and Purunakatak. In a statement, the zonal railway said, Overall target for the project is December 2025 subject to availability of 97.59 acres of Private land, 262.75 acres of Govt. land and Stage-I forest clearance from Km 112-180.

The Khurda Road – Balangir Rail Line project is one of the focus projects of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw as this is also one of the focus projects of PM Modi.

The new Railway station at Ayodhya. Was supposed to be inaugurated Dec 2022, but has been pushed back a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHLNl8jhIp4

vsunder wrote:Carmelaram to Heelalige, doubling CRS on the Bangalore to Hosur/Electronics City to be done in 5 days, Feb 20th,10.5km. Part of the suburban rail for Bangalore. Bangalore to Hosur is being doubled.

Carmelaram-Heelalige section saw really quick progress in doubling. Most likely because the stretch is not densely populated, and was more of a farm land. But Carmelaram-Bellandur Road-Bayyappanahalli does not seem to be completed. Also on the Bangalore-Hosur doubling; work is in stand still at least for the last eight months. Few culverts, etc were build land was also cleared in some parts in this section. Vegatation has come back on the cleared lands.

My observation is that the troubles began at Sterlite copper exactly when IR embarked on its program to fully electrify its network and needed large amounts of Copper wire. Today IR railway electrification is at 85.34% electrified. The target of 2024 for full electrification may not be met and possibly shoot over to 2025 for 100%. In a year they may be at 95%.

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@Sachin: Bypannahalli to Hosur doubling is being implemented by K-Ride, Karnataka government's SPV for Bangalore suburban rail. Their office is on Dr. Rajkumar rd. in Rajajinagar, Bengaluru. In 2018 IR washed its hands of all this Karnataka lafda due to incompetent state govt and non-cooperation and hurdles raised by state government. So if the project is slow it is the fault of K-Ride and state Govt. of Karnataka. They periodically bring up new deadlines and now 2024 is being advertised as the completion year for Hosur/Electronics City to Bengaluru doubling. They are also planning to add more stations on this route for the convenience of IT workers.

The best SPV is Gujarat government. Under Kutch Railway Corporation primarily with a significant push from Modi when he was Gujarat CM, they have converted Palanpur to Samikhiali to FEDL in Nov 2022. This is a 210 km rail route. Beyond Samikhiali to Mundhra and Kandla ports, doubled but not electrified yet. Freight moves from these ports and reaches Palanpur, bypasses the station and IR yard and gets on the WDFC right away towards Delhi and North India. Kutch Railway corp, RVNL and IR in a joint venture, gauge converted, doubled and installed high mast OHE for electric traction. Once the little bit 62km from Samikhiali to Mundhra and Kandla ports is electrified, it will be electric traction doubled all the way from major container terminals in North India to Gujarat ports. Already this doubled and electrified link of Gujarat ports Pipavav, Mundhra, Kandla with WDFC which is operationalized over 800km is pulling significant business away from JNPT, so much so that JNPT is complaining.

Indian Railways marks record production of LHB coach, locomotives in FY 2022-23.

Indian Railways has achieved another milestone with record production in FY 2022-23. During the period up to January 31, 2023, the various units of the Railways are on the fast track to achieve record production in the current fiscal. The railways also have ambitious plans to recapture the country’s freight market share to 40 percent in the next 10 years.

Locomotives:-
Indian Railways’ three loco production units at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW), Banaras Locomotive Works (BLW), and Patiala Locomotive Works (PLW) have manufactured 785 electric locomotives in the current fiscal till January 31. Out of 785, the three units – CLW, BLW, and PLW have produced 344, 286, and 155 locomotives respectively.

LHB Coach:-
The coach production units of Railways have increased the coach production capacity in the financial year 2022-23. Till January 31, a total of 4,175 LHB (Linke Hofmann Busch) coaches were produced to ensure convenient and faster mobility.

The three coach factories – Kapurthala-based Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Chennai-based Integral Coach Factory (ICF), and Rae Bareli-based Modern Coach Factory (MCF) have produced 1221, 1891, and 1063 LHB coaches respectively.

The three coach manufacturing units – ICF, RCF, and MCF are coaches of Vande Bharat, LHB, EMUs, MEMUs, Vistadome, and other coaches, while the three locomotives production units manufacture advanced Electric locos i.e. WAG9 and WAP7. It is also manufacturing modern energy-efficient 12000hp and 9000hp locomotives.

In the fiscal year 2021-22, all the manufacturing units of railways have achieved record production. In the last fiscal year, LHB Coach Production increased by 45 percent and Loco production increased by 34 percent.

The LHB coach offers safer and more comfortable journeys to the travelling passengers. The LHB coaches are technologically superior and have better riding, aesthetics, and safety features than conventional ICF-type coaches.

Vsunder lovely info....have a question regarding the pantograph and the overhead wire.
Its regarding the wear and tear of both the pantograph and the wire. How strong are they?
We don't hear about the overhead wire breaking due to the use of constant touching of the pantograph.

@Ashthor: Catenary wires do break occasionally but regular maintenance prevents that. You might have noticed that locos have their back pantographs raised instead of their front ones while traveling. Studies have shown that the possibility of wires getting entangled with the loco are much less with this arrangement than with a front pantograph raised.

One of the new technologies that is being utilized on the DFCs is automated stringing of catenary wire. The current method on IR is overly manual and also not accurate in the sense the tensioning is not uniform and the amount of catenary wire that can be installed in a single day is limited. Modern systems were imported from OMAC-Italy for the DFCs which are very mechanized, the manual component is less and a lot of catenary wire can be installed in a day. Otherwise it would take forever to electrify the DFCs. These systems will now make their way into IR. IR systems are just a bunch of people on the roof of an ICF coach and using poles and trying to string wire, rather primitive but they did get a lot of railway electrification done to 85% on IR.

If you look at this video of an OMAC system at work on the WDFC, you can see the cab operator is paying out the wire around 8 kilo newtons. In the end at final tensioning, the wire will be at 19 kilo newtons. That is the RDSO requirement. When wire is laid, it is usually laid in sections of a mile. One end is anchored to a pole(initial tensioning post), and the other end a mile away, runs through a system of pulleys, an auto-tensioning mechanism that takes up slack when the wire expands in summer and contracts in winter, so that uniform tension is maintained. From the pulley the wire ends in a weight system that looks like bunch of gym weights which can be seen trackside hanging from the pole. In the video I have linked below, you can see the pulley system at the end of the wire when it is attached to the first support/tensioning pole preparatory to the catenary wire being paid out. OK here is the video of the OMAC catenary stringing machine at work on the WDFC, the shape of things to come:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xo7AWSaG4E