Union Minister for Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated India’s First Aluminum Freight Rake from Bhubaneswar Railway Station on 16th October, 2022. The rake’s destination was towards 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.
The Aluminum Freight Rake is fully constructed with lock bolt and there is no welding on the superstructure. The tare weight of this aluminum rake is 3.25 tones lower than the normal steel rakes which increase its carrying capacity to extra 180 tones resulting in higher throughput per wagon.
The Aluminum freight rake have higher payload to tare ratio i.e 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 carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Post lifespan of the wagon 80% resale value of the rakes can also be obtained. Cost of this rake is 35% higher as the superstructure is made all of aluminum. The overall maintenance cost of this rake is lower due to higher corrosion & 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.
