The ‘Gati Shakti,’ India’s first semi-high-speed freight train, is slated to begin service in December, according to officials. These trains, like the Vande Bharat Trains, will be built at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. They will have 16 coaches and can travel at a speed of 160 kmph.
The Railway Board has established a separate directorate to implement the PM Gati Shakti initiative, including branches in the Khurda, Bilaspur, Delhi, and Bengaluru divisions. “Work on these trains’ design has already begun. We’ve also placed an order for material, and we’ll be able to build two of these trains by December,” ICF General Manager A K Agarwal said. “The final number of trains will depend on how the initial ones are received by the market,” he added.
As per the officials, by introducing these trains the Railways is planning to target the e-commerce and courier parcel services meanwhile every train will include refrigerated wagons in the rear end and in the front to carry perishables like milk products, fish, fruit and vegetables. Electricity connection for these trains will be provided by the coach. The rest of the coaches will have rollers for moving the container and each coach will have two doors for loading and unloading the containers. 74 new ‘Gati-Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT) locations have been selected by the Indian Railways across the country. This policy was introduced in 2021 with the aim to boost investment in the development of additional terminals for handling rail cargo.
