By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister for Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated India’s First Aluminum Freight Rake – 61 BOBRNALHSM1 at Bhubaneswar Railway Station on Saturday. 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.
