India to get semi-high speed freight train

What is the News?

The Railways is aiming to introduce the country’s first semi-high speed freight train named the ‘Gati Shakti’ train by December 2022.

What is the ‘Gati Shakti’ train?

The train is based on the Vande Bharat platform. The train has 16-coach and will be able to run at 160 km/hour. Initially, two trains would be built, the final number of trains would depend on market reception.

Each train would have two refrigerated wagons to ferry perishable items such as fruits and vegetables.

Purpose: To tap the growing freight sector in the country.

Manufactured at: Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.

What is the significance of ‘Gati Shakti’ trains?

Capture the e-commerce market: The railways is planning to target the e-commerce and courier parcel segment with the launch of these trains. Especially the small size parcel shipments by running dedicated high-speed freight trains.

Note: India’s e-commerce market is expected to reach $111 billion by 2024, $200 billion by 2026 and expected to reach $350 billion by 2030.

Increase share of Freight transportation: According to the National Rail Plan, Railways is aiming to increase its share in freight transportation from the present 27% to 45% by 2030 through better infrastructure and business development plans. The freight trains will aid in improving the share of freight transportation.

Source: The post is based on the article “India to get semi-high speed freight train” published in The Hindu on 28th May 2022.