ICF plans to roll out Train 19 rake this year

Agarwal said railway board had granted approval to ICF to produce 40 rakes of Train 18 and there was no proposal to shift the manufacturing of train sets to other units.

Rajesh Agrawal, member of Railway Board, at ICF on Tuesday. ICF GM Rahul Jain is also seen | Express

CHENNAI: The Integral Coach Factory (ICF) here will take up design, development and production of Train 19, a semi-high speed train having sleeper coaches this financial year, said Rajesh Agarwal, Member (Rolling Stock), Railway Board, here on Tuesday.  Speaking to reporters at ICF, Agarwal said the first rake of Train 18, rechristened as Vande Bharat Express was introduced between Delhi and Varanasi in February and has been running with cent per cent occupancy.

“Train 19 rakes will replace the Rajdhani trains and we are hopeful of rolling out the first rake this year,” he said.

Agarwal said railway board had granted approval to ICF to produce 40 rakes of Train 18 and there was no proposal to shift the manufacturing of train sets to other units. “To improve the safety of Train 18, in the event of cattle crossing, it has been planned to fit the driver cabin crash guard with aluminum design in place of Fibre Reinforced Plastic,” he said. 

To a query on introducing air-conditioned suburban trains in Chennai, he replied : “12 rakes of AC local trains are planned to be rolled out of ICF for 2019-20. However, these rakes are not alloted for Chennai division. As of now, supply of rakes to Chennai suburban has not been finalised,” he said.  

He said ICF, Modern Coach Factory (Raebareli) and Rail Coach Factory (Kapurthala) together have planned to produce about 7500 coaches for the current financial year. “A new coach manufacturing unit of Indian Railways is being set up at Latur  (in Maharashtra) and will be commissioned this year. While ICF planned to produce around 4000 coaches, MCF and RCF are  likely to roll out 2100 and 1600 coaches respectively,” he said.  

As regards manufacturing of coaches for metro trains with standard gauge, he said that efforts were being made with State Government and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. “If we get any such requests we will look into it,” he said.On export of Train 18 train sets, he said some South East Asian and South American nations have evinced interest for import of such coaches.  However, after fulfilling the needs of Indian Railways, the same will be considered, he said. 

Earlier, the 60,000th coach, a self-propelled inspection car was flagged off from ICF by K Venkateswaralu, a senior most retiring employee of ICF.