Indian Railways has embarked upon an ambition plan of electrification of its complete Broad Gauge network by 2023-24 which would not only result in a better fuel energy usage resulting in increased throughput, reduced fuel expenditure but also savings in precious foreign exchange.

In this series, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has successfully completed the Electrification work of total 649 Route Kilometer (RKM)/ 1294 Tonne Kilometer (TKM) of High-Density Network (HDN) from Katihar to Guwahati. This great feat will now connect all major cities of the country with Guwahati on seamless Electric Traction. This is yet another effort by NFR for capital connectivity by Green Transportation.

    The final leg of HDN on NF Railway of 107 RKM/273 TKM was successfully inspected by Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) NF circle from 7th Oct to 9th Oct 2021. In addition to this, passenger trains with higher speed & heavier goods trains can be run.

Apart from saving foreign exchange reserves spent on HSD Oil and providing greener transportation in north east, railway electrification up to Guwahati shall lead to likely saving of foreign exchange spent on HSD Oil of about Rs 300 Cr per annum. HSD Oil consumption will reduce by about 3400 KL per month.  Due to seamless train operation, traction change at New Jalpaiguri, New Coochbehar will now be done away with, enhancing mobility of the trains. Running time between Guwahati to Katihar / Malda Town is likely to reduce by up to 2 hours as trains can now move at higher speed due to better acceleration/ deceleration. Line capacity enhancement of up to 10-15% shall lead to reducing level of saturation on many of the sections on the NF Railway allowing more coaching trains to run.

With Electrification heavier goods trains can be run at higher speed. NF Railway has difficult terrain with a large number of graded sections, curves, bridges. Electric traction shall eliminate need for multi diesel locos as higher HP electric engines can maintain higher speed in gradient section. Additional Rajdhani express trains can now be introduced for NE states like Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Electrification of this section shall improve operational efficiency and shall lead to large saving on fuel for power cars (About Rs 10 Cr on the electrified route itself). 15 pairs of existing trains originating/terminating at KYQ/GHY can run with an additional passenger coach by eliminating one power car, thus improving passenger throughput. Electrification will lead to better maintenance as faster trains shall lead to more time for maintenance blocks.

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RJ/DS