Union Minister for Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated India’s First Aluminum Freight Rake – 61 BOBRNALHSM1 at Bhubaneswar Railway Station today. The rake’s destination is Bilaspur.
This is a dedicated effort for Make in India program as it has been fully designed and developed indigenously in collaboration with RDSO, HINDALCO and Besco Wagon.
Features of Aluminium Rake:
- Fully Lockbolted construction with no welding on superstructure.
- The tare is 3.25 tons lower than normal steel rakes, 180 ton extra carrying capacity resulting in higher throughput per wagon.
- Higher payload to tare ratio 2.85.
- The reduced tare will reduce carbon footprint as lower consumption of fuel in empty direction and more transport of freight in loaded condition. A single rake can save over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime.
- 80% is resale value of the rakes.
- Cost is 35% higher as the superstructure is all aluminium.
- Lower maintenance cost due to higher corrosion and abrasion resistance.
Iron industry consumes a lot of Nickel and Cadmium which comes from import. So, proliferation of Aluminum wagons will result in less import. At the same time, this is good for local aluminum industry.