Railway Network in DMIC States Centre for Urban Research
Railway network is the backbone of Delhi - Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Project. Adequate connectivity between ports/ hinterlands and the proposed dedicated freight corridor is essential for successful implementation of the project. Review of railway network deals with the overview of existing railway network as well as review of ongoing plans for further development of railway network.
Existing Length of Rail Network in DMIC States
DMIC states constitute 43% of total length of rail network in the country (63,332km). Apart from Union Territories of Diu & Daman and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi constitutes least length of rail network length (204km). In Rajasthan, the length of rail network (5838km) is slightly higher than the respective lengths in Maharashtra and Gujarat states.
Review of Rail Network
Solely owned and operated by the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, the Indian Railways has two backbone lines linking Delhi with Mumbai. These include:
a) The Delhi - Mumbai broad gauge line routed via Mathura Junction, Kota, Ratlam, Vadodara and Surat. Fully electrified and upgraded to the standard of high speed Rajadhani Express trains (130 kmph); this line serves as the principal route for movement of passengers and freight between Delhi and Mumbai.
b) The Delhi - Mumbai broad gauge line running via Rewari, Jaipur, Ajmer, Marwar Jn., Palanpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. Till recently, the Delhi - Ahmedabad segment of this route comprised a metre gauge system linking Ahmedabad and the Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat to northern India. Under the unigauge policy of the Indian railways, this route was converted to broad gauge in the 1990s. Although some of its connecting branch lines are still in the process of conversion to broad gauge, it effectively serves as an alternative rail link between Delhi and Mumbai. The principal strength of this route lies in the fact that it provides nationwide broad gauge connectivity for the Saurashtra and Kutch regions of the state of Gujarat. The above two lines converge into a single rou
te between Vadodara and Mumbai. Further, whereas most of the long distance passenger services terminate at Mumbai Central or Lokmanya Tilak (Bandra) passenger terminals, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mumbai Ports and Panvel junction constitute the principal destinations for freight services.
Evaluation of existing rail network
Like all other rail routes in the country, the two rail routes discussed above are common user lines for passenger as well as freight services. Besides, their limited capacity is not only fully utilized by the existing services but even exceeded to the extent of 150% or above on different stretches of the route.
To add to this, the railways follow a strict order of priority which relegates freight services to the lowest priority. This results in their slow and sluggish movement, frequent detentions for providing precedence to passenger services, high operating cost and poor productivity. The state of freight operations on the Indian Railways as a whole can be judged from the fact that goods trains achieve an average speed of only 25 kmph and a goods wagon is on run for merely 25% of the day.
The existing Delhi - Mumbai routes are no different. Line capacity availability and its actual utilization on these routes are enclosed in the Annexure.
Link Routes The following rail lines join the two backbone rail routes at different rail junction points.
Delhi - Ratlam - Mumbai Route
i. Mathura Junction: Mathura junction - Jhansi - Bhopal segment of the Delhi - Chennai trunk route.
ii. Bayana: Bayana - Tundla link line connecting the Delhi - Mumbai route with the Delhi - Howrah trunk route.
iii. Kota: Katni - Bina - Kota and Udaipur - Chittaurgarh - Kota lines.
iv. Nagda: Itarsi - Bhopal - Ujjain - Nagda line.
v. Godhra: Anand - Godhra line.
vi. Udhna: Bhusawal - Jalgaon - Udhna line.
vii. Gothangam: Gothangam - Hazira line
viii. Vasai Road: J N Port - Diva - Vasai line.
Delhi - Ajmer - Palanpur - Ahmedabad - Mumbai Route
i. Rewari: Bhatinda - Hissar - Rewari and Ludhiana - Hissar - Rewari lines.
ii. Phulera: Jodhpur - Merta Road - Phulera line.
iii. Ajmer: Ratalm - Chittaurgarh - Ajmer line.
iv. Marwar Junction: Barmer - Jodhpur - Marwar line.
v. Palanpur: Gandhidham - Bhilih - Palanpur line serving the Kandla and Mundra Ports and the Kutch region of Gujarat.
vi. Mahesana: Okha/ Porbandar/ Veraval-Rajkot-Surendra Nagar-Viramgam- Mahesana line which serves Okha, Porbandar, Veraval, Navlakhi, Bedi and Pipavav ports in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat.
vii. Ahmedabad: Line
s discussed at (V) and (VI) above also join Ahmedabad via Viramgam.
viii. Udhna: As in the other route.
ix. Vasai Road: As in the other route.
Dedicated Freight Corridor The Most important impending development is the MoR's proposal to build two dedicated freight corridors along the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata legs of IR's Golden Quadrilateral, termed as the Western and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), respectively. By providing higher speed (100 kmph) and higher per train throughput capacity, the high axle load (25Tonne per axle) western DFC will be particularly relevant to the DMIC.
Wagons deployed on the DFC will carry a gross load of 100 Tonnes as against the present limitation of 81.28 Tonnes, and a unit train will be able to carry a gross load of upto 6200 Tonnes as against 4715 Tonnes at present. Container trains, which constitute a predominant component of traffic carried on the route, will also run in double-stack formation thereby expediting container evacuation and increasing throughput per train. What is most important is that the DFC will generate additional capacity of carrying upto 120 freight trains per direction per day. Further, as trains running on the DFC will not be overtaken by other passenger trains, these will have uninterrupted runs and achieve an average commercial speed of 60kmph or more.
Traffic studies carried out by the Indian Railways in the context of the Western DFC have brought out that the existing routes which carry a mere 25 to 35 freight trains per day on the different sections are already saturated and are incapable of meeting the needs of a rapidly growing economy (GDP growth rate of over 9% per annum) which will result in an annual growth of freight traffic @ 10 to 12%. The studies have also brought out that containers, coal, fertilizers, POL, salt, cement, iron & steel and food grains will comprise the principal commodities carried on the DFC adding up to over 100 trains each way per day by the year 2021-22. Of these, containers alone are expected to constitute nearly 80% of the total traffic; the rest being covered in the remaining 20%. The anticipated section wise freight train throughput is shown in Annexure-3.
It is also worth mentioning that for fixing the alignment of the DFC the studies evaluated both available rail routes between Delhi and Mumbai. However, after taking all aspects into consideration, it has been decided to build the DFC along the J N Port-Vadodara Ahmedabad-Palanpur-Ajmer-Phulera-Rewari-Dadri alignment. The advantage of this alignment is that, besides connecting the terminals of J.N.Port/ Mumbai Port at the Mumbai end and Tughlakabad and
Dadri ICDs in the NCR of Delhi, it has the potential to connect all the existing and anticipated ports in Gujarat (Dahej, Hazira, Kandla, Mundra, Pipavav, Bhavnagar, Navlakhi, Bedi, Dholera, Maroli etc.) through the different feeder routes which would also be upgraded and developed simultaneously with the construction of the DFC.
The Western DFC, stretching over 1483 Km. is expected to take 5 years to build and is likely to be commissioned in 2011-12. It has also been planned that, in order to facilitate exchange of traffic between exiting trunk route / branch lines and the DFC, traffic exchange junctions will be set up at the following locations:
i. Dadri: With ICD Dadri and the eastern DFC.
ii. Pirthala: With ICD Tughlakabad and movement between ICD Tughlakabad and ICD Dadri.
iii. Rewari: For traffic Bhatinda and Ludhiana via Hissar.
iv. Phulera: For traffic to and from Jodhpur-Marta Road and Jaipur-Agra Fort
v. Marwar Junction: For traffic between Mumbai and Jodhpur
vi. Palanpur: For traffic from and to Kandla and Mundra Ports and the Kutch region of Gujarat.
vii. Amli Road: For traffic between Mumbai and ICD Sabarmati (Ahmedabad) and other destinations via Sabarmati.
viii. Makarpura: For traffic between Mumbai region and Vadodara / Ahmedabad area and Vadodara - Ratlam - Kota r
oute. ix. Gothangam: For traffic from and to Hazira Port and Hazira industrial cluster.
x. Vasai Road: For traffic from and to Mumbai Port, Konkan Railway and Pune / Nashik areas.
xi. Nhava-Sheva Yard: For Traffic from/to JNPT
Feeder Linkages/ Port Connectivity
Apart from the DFC, and as identified in the Report of the Committee of Secretaries on Road Rail Connectivity of Major Ports, the Railways also have the following port connectivity and / or infrastructure augmentation projects relevant to the DMIC under different stages of implementation.
In addition to the above ongoing projects the railways have already completed and commissioned the following feeder route linkage facilitation works:
i. Conversion to BG of the Pipavav-Surendranagar-Viramagam - Mahesana line (395 km) in Gujarat.
ii. Mundra Port-Gandhidham (66km)
iii. Viramgam-Samakhali (182km)
iv. Hazira-Surat (40km)
v. Ludhiana-Hissar-Rewari (348km)
vi. Conversion to BG of the Navlakhi - Rajkot / Malia Miyana line (70 km) in Gujarat.
vii. Conversion to BG of the Okha / Porbandar Ports to Jamnagar line (108 km) in Gujarat.
viii. Conversion to BG of the Bandikui - Bharatpur - Agra Fort line (130 km) in Rajasthan and UP.
ix. Doubling of the existing BG route between Ajmer and Delhi (395 km) in Rajasthan, Haryana and NCR of Delhi.
Future Connectivity Augmentation Measures It can be reasonably believed that by 2011-12 when the Western DFC is expected to be commissioned, the Indian Railways will be fully geared to effectively meet the demands of traffic emanating from the proposed DMIC. Further, if not already connected by rail, all the new industrial sites identified for development under the DMIC project and
connectivity to other important minor/ intermediate ports along the west coast in Maharashtra and Gujarat are proposed to be linked to the DFC to ensure improved rail connectivity in the influence area of DMIC. Discussions with the Chairman, Railway Board reveal that Ministry of Railways may consider construction of Dedicated Freight Corridor connectivity between Mumbai (at Thane) and Pune so as to ensure the highly intensive industrial activities of the region with the JN Port.
Discussions have also revealed that Indian Railways plans to develop high speed passenger rail connectivity between Ahmedabad-Mumbai and Jaipur-Delhi-Amritsar for implementation through public private partnership.
Existing Length of Rail Network in DMIC States
DMIC states constitute 43% of total length of rail network in the country (63,332km). Apart from Union Territories of Diu & Daman and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi constitutes least length of rail network length (204km). In Rajasthan, the length of rail network (5838km) is slightly higher than the respective lengths in Maharashtra and Gujarat states.
Review of Rail Network
Solely owned and operated by the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, the Indian Railways has two backbone lines linking Delhi with Mumbai. These include:
a) The Delhi - Mumbai broad gauge line routed via Mathura Junction, Kota, Ratlam, Vadodara and Surat. Fully electrified and upgraded to the standard of high speed Rajadhani Express trains (130 kmph); this line serves as the principal route for movement of passengers and freight between Delhi and Mumbai.
b) The Delhi - Mumbai broad gauge line running via Rewari, Jaipur, Ajmer, Marwar Jn., Palanpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. Till recently, the Delhi - Ahmedabad segment of this route comprised a metre gauge system linking Ahmedabad and the Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat to northern India. Under the unigauge policy of the Indian railways, this route was converted to broad gauge in the 1990s. Although some of its connecting branch lines are still in the process of conversion to broad gauge, it effectively serves as an alternative rail link between Delhi and Mumbai. The principal strength of this route lies in the fact that it provides nationwide broad gauge connectivity for the Saurashtra and Kutch regions of the state of Gujarat. The above two lines converge into a single rou
te between Vadodara and Mumbai. Further, whereas most of the long distance passenger services terminate at Mumbai Central or Lokmanya Tilak (Bandra) passenger terminals, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mumbai Ports and Panvel junction constitute the principal destinations for freight services.
Evaluation of existing rail network
Like all other rail routes in the country, the two rail routes discussed above are common user lines for passenger as well as freight services. Besides, their limited capacity is not only fully utilized by the existing services but even exceeded to the extent of 150% or above on different stretches of the route.
To add to this, the railways follow a strict order of priority which relegates freight services to the lowest priority. This results in their slow and sluggish movement, frequent detentions for providing precedence to passenger services, high operating cost and poor productivity. The state of freight operations on the Indian Railways as a whole can be judged from the fact that goods trains achieve an average speed of only 25 kmph and a goods wagon is on run for merely 25% of the day.
The existing Delhi - Mumbai routes are no different. Line capacity availability and its actual utilization on these routes are enclosed in the Annexure.
Link Routes The following rail lines join the two backbone rail routes at different rail junction points.
Delhi - Ratlam - Mumbai Route
i. Mathura Junction: Mathura junction - Jhansi - Bhopal segment of the Delhi - Chennai trunk route.
ii. Bayana: Bayana - Tundla link line connecting the Delhi - Mumbai route with the Delhi - Howrah trunk route.
iii. Kota: Katni - Bina - Kota and Udaipur - Chittaurgarh - Kota lines.
iv. Nagda: Itarsi - Bhopal - Ujjain - Nagda line.
v. Godhra: Anand - Godhra line.
vi. Udhna: Bhusawal - Jalgaon - Udhna line.
vii. Gothangam: Gothangam - Hazira line
viii. Vasai Road: J N Port - Diva - Vasai line.
Delhi - Ajmer - Palanpur - Ahmedabad - Mumbai Route
i. Rewari: Bhatinda - Hissar - Rewari and Ludhiana - Hissar - Rewari lines.
ii. Phulera: Jodhpur - Merta Road - Phulera line.
iii. Ajmer: Ratalm - Chittaurgarh - Ajmer line.
iv. Marwar Junction: Barmer - Jodhpur - Marwar line.
v. Palanpur: Gandhidham - Bhilih - Palanpur line serving the Kandla and Mundra Ports and the Kutch region of Gujarat.
vi. Mahesana: Okha/ Porbandar/ Veraval-Rajkot-Surendra Nagar-Viramgam- Mahesana line which serves Okha, Porbandar, Veraval, Navlakhi, Bedi and Pipavav ports in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat.
vii. Ahmedabad: Line
s discussed at (V) and (VI) above also join Ahmedabad via Viramgam.
viii. Udhna: As in the other route.
ix. Vasai Road: As in the other route.
Dedicated Freight Corridor The Most important impending development is the MoR's proposal to build two dedicated freight corridors along the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata legs of IR's Golden Quadrilateral, termed as the Western and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), respectively. By providing higher speed (100 kmph) and higher per train throughput capacity, the high axle load (25Tonne per axle) western DFC will be particularly relevant to the DMIC.
Wagons deployed on the DFC will carry a gross load of 100 Tonnes as against the present limitation of 81.28 Tonnes, and a unit train will be able to carry a gross load of upto 6200 Tonnes as against 4715 Tonnes at present. Container trains, which constitute a predominant component of traffic carried on the route, will also run in double-stack formation thereby expediting container evacuation and increasing throughput per train. What is most important is that the DFC will generate additional capacity of carrying upto 120 freight trains per direction per day. Further, as trains running on the DFC will not be overtaken by other passenger trains, these will have uninterrupted runs and achieve an average commercial speed of 60kmph or more.
Traffic studies carried out by the Indian Railways in the context of the Western DFC have brought out that the existing routes which carry a mere 25 to 35 freight trains per day on the different sections are already saturated and are incapable of meeting the needs of a rapidly growing economy (GDP growth rate of over 9% per annum) which will result in an annual growth of freight traffic @ 10 to 12%. The studies have also brought out that containers, coal, fertilizers, POL, salt, cement, iron & steel and food grains will comprise the principal commodities carried on the DFC adding up to over 100 trains each way per day by the year 2021-22. Of these, containers alone are expected to constitute nearly 80% of the total traffic; the rest being covered in the remaining 20%. The anticipated section wise freight train throughput is shown in Annexure-3.
It is also worth mentioning that for fixing the alignment of the DFC the studies evaluated both available rail routes between Delhi and Mumbai. However, after taking all aspects into consideration, it has been decided to build the DFC along the J N Port-Vadodara Ahmedabad-Palanpur-Ajmer-Phulera-Rewari-Dadri alignment. The advantage of this alignment is that, besides connecting the terminals of J.N.Port/ Mumbai Port at the Mumbai end and Tughlakabad and
Dadri ICDs in the NCR of Delhi, it has the potential to connect all the existing and anticipated ports in Gujarat (Dahej, Hazira, Kandla, Mundra, Pipavav, Bhavnagar, Navlakhi, Bedi, Dholera, Maroli etc.) through the different feeder routes which would also be upgraded and developed simultaneously with the construction of the DFC.
The Western DFC, stretching over 1483 Km. is expected to take 5 years to build and is likely to be commissioned in 2011-12. It has also been planned that, in order to facilitate exchange of traffic between exiting trunk route / branch lines and the DFC, traffic exchange junctions will be set up at the following locations:
i. Dadri: With ICD Dadri and the eastern DFC.
ii. Pirthala: With ICD Tughlakabad and movement between ICD Tughlakabad and ICD Dadri.
iii. Rewari: For traffic Bhatinda and Ludhiana via Hissar.
iv. Phulera: For traffic to and from Jodhpur-Marta Road and Jaipur-Agra Fort
v. Marwar Junction: For traffic between Mumbai and Jodhpur
vi. Palanpur: For traffic from and to Kandla and Mundra Ports and the Kutch region of Gujarat.
vii. Amli Road: For traffic between Mumbai and ICD Sabarmati (Ahmedabad) and other destinations via Sabarmati.
viii. Makarpura: For traffic between Mumbai region and Vadodara / Ahmedabad area and Vadodara - Ratlam - Kota r
oute. ix. Gothangam: For traffic from and to Hazira Port and Hazira industrial cluster.
x. Vasai Road: For traffic from and to Mumbai Port, Konkan Railway and Pune / Nashik areas.
xi. Nhava-Sheva Yard: For Traffic from/to JNPT
Feeder Linkages/ Port Connectivity
Apart from the DFC, and as identified in the Report of the Committee of Secretaries on Road Rail Connectivity of Major Ports, the Railways also have the following port connectivity and / or infrastructure augmentation projects relevant to the DMIC under different stages of implementation.
In addition to the above ongoing projects the railways have already completed and commissioned the following feeder route linkage facilitation works:
i. Conversion to BG of the Pipavav-Surendranagar-Viramagam - Mahesana line (395 km) in Gujarat.
ii. Mundra Port-Gandhidham (66km)
iii. Viramgam-Samakhali (182km)
iv. Hazira-Surat (40km)
v. Ludhiana-Hissar-Rewari (348km)
vi. Conversion to BG of the Navlakhi - Rajkot / Malia Miyana line (70 km) in Gujarat.
vii. Conversion to BG of the Okha / Porbandar Ports to Jamnagar line (108 km) in Gujarat.
viii. Conversion to BG of the Bandikui - Bharatpur - Agra Fort line (130 km) in Rajasthan and UP.
ix. Doubling of the existing BG route between Ajmer and Delhi (395 km) in Rajasthan, Haryana and NCR of Delhi.
Future Connectivity Augmentation Measures It can be reasonably believed that by 2011-12 when the Western DFC is expected to be commissioned, the Indian Railways will be fully geared to effectively meet the demands of traffic emanating from the proposed DMIC. Further, if not already connected by rail, all the new industrial sites identified for development under the DMIC project and
connectivity to other important minor/ intermediate ports along the west coast in Maharashtra and Gujarat are proposed to be linked to the DFC to ensure improved rail connectivity in the influence area of DMIC. Discussions with the Chairman, Railway Board reveal that Ministry of Railways may consider construction of Dedicated Freight Corridor connectivity between Mumbai (at Thane) and Pune so as to ensure the highly intensive industrial activities of the region with the JN Port.
Discussions have also revealed that Indian Railways plans to develop high speed passenger rail connectivity between Ahmedabad-Mumbai and Jaipur-Delhi-Amritsar for implementation through public private partnership.
