Rail transportation, Super Vasuki, India's longest train ..

In any country, the transportation of people and freight over large distances is necessary for national economic development. Migration of people over large distances and heavy freight movement are the results of fast economic development in any country and faster modes of transportation

In the 75 years of India's economic growth after independence, we have seen great growth in the transportation sector, especially in freight transportation and the role of Indian railways in this growth cannot be neglected. To reaffirm it's role in national economic development, the government with the help of Indian Railways is stressing on building permanent capacity augmentation in freight transportation across the country.

Different freight transportation modes

Reaffirming the role of freight transportation in the growth of the country, Super Vasuki, India's longest freight train, from South East Central Railway, 3500 metres long, with 6 locomotive engines and 295 coaches did it's first trial run between Korba in Chattisgarh and Rajnandgaon Nagpur carrying 27,000 tonnes of coal on the 15 th of August 2022.

In India we have not had trains of this length and hauling capacity before. It was done as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebration. (click here) . It took 11.2 hours to cover a distance of 267 kms, an average speed of 24 kms per hour. Being a trial run it is very reasonable to expect such low speeds as it is the first run. Especially at India's 75th year of independence it is a great sight seeing such long trains in service.

Sishen–Saldanha, South Africa. Run on 26–27 August 1989, comprising 660 wagons, 7.302 kilometres (4.537 mi) long and a total weight of 71 765 tons on a 1,067 mm gauge line. The train comprised 16 locomotives (9 Class 9E 50 kV AC electric and 7 Class 37 diesel-electric). - wikipedia.org

Though the train from top view was found to have been partly loaded, the total load of total 27,000 T of coal moved over a distance of 267 kms in a time of 11 hours was a great task. This paves the way for more long distance freight trains hauling more freight to  move over railway tracks, helping in the fast industrialisation of our country. 

The graph on the right tells us a bit about the transport economics of multiple modes of transportation (taken with courtesy of www.transportgeography.org). 

While the cost curves are known for centuries the slope of the different lines tells us that road is least preferred over rail and sea when the distances are large. The costs are only dependent on the distances involved. The fixed costs (the y coordinate at x=0) are lowest for road, then progressively increases for rail and is maximum for sea, while the increase in running costs (slope of the lines) is very steep for road, less steep for rail and least steep for sea modes.

Let us try to find how the values of D1 and D2 vary over the different regions of the world. (click here)

In the most populous and presently fast developing regions of the world including Asia and Africa, D1 is at between 500-750 kms while D2 is near about 1500 kms

In the developed economies of Europe, D1 is at 1050 kms and in US it is around 1200 kms. The average rail haul length is US is around 3050 kms with 65% of trains in US hauling loads for average 3200 kms. 

In a peninsular country like India, national rail transportation is economical and short distance inland transport in Indian hinterland while sea based transportation appears attractive in terms of cost and distance only for coast to coast transportation.

George