Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurates India’s 1st Aluminum Freight Rake – 61 BOBRNALHSM1

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 today. 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.