Steps taken to involve private players in developing railway services include opening up of container operation and provision of certain services like special freight train operation, Automobile train operation and procurement of specified type of rolling stocks. Private players are also involved in providing facilities like cleaning, pay and use toilets, catering, retiring rooms, parking, ticketing etc. on need based manner.
For development of Railway stations, a scheme to redevelop ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ category stations which are generally located in metros, major cities, pilgrimage centres and important tourist destinations on ‘as is where is’ basis has been formulated. Eight stations viz., Anand Vihar, Bijwasan, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Habibganj (Bhopal), Shivaji Nagar (Pune), SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Surat had been entrusted to Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd. (IRSDC) to invite bids for interested parties.
Major capacity expansion strategies include construction of dedicated freight corridors, High Speed Train Corridors, doubling/third line, new lines, gauge conversion etc. among others. As on date, Railway’s shelf of work includes 458 works/projects of new line, gauge conversion and double lines, two dedicated freight corridors and Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail.