Future Of Freight Transportation: Indian Railways Creates 2 Km Long ‘Python Rake’ For Odisha-Vizag Goods Movement

The East Coast Railway (ECoR), on Monday (26 February) joined three freight trains as one unit and ran it as a two km long goods train, the Times of India has reported.

The train has been called as the Python Rake because of the long snake-like size formation while running on tracks.

The Sambalpur Divisional Railway manager said, “The length is perhaps a record in the country though we need to verify past similar experiments in railways history to establish that.”

The train had 147 wagons, three brake and guard vans along with four engines. The first rake of 45 flat wagons was loaded with containers, and the other two rakes of 51 alumina containers each were empty. The train went towards Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam Port.

The run was conducted on experimental basis said, Gupta. “Initially, we had planned to run 101 km from Godbhaga to Balangir station, but we ran 40 km more towards Titilagarh junction inspired by the first 101 km journey. Later, we disconnected a train at Saintala station and the second one at Badmal station,” he adds.

Gupta also said that the railway is constructing a double line between Khaliapali and Dungrapali stations in Sambalpur division as the train runs on a single line and gets delayed.

Sources from the ECoR said that the zone would also carry out the exercises in an organised way in various parts of the state and their jurisdiction soon.“We have seen running of Python Rake with two trains in Agra and other areas of the country. But amalgamation of three rakes and running it in an organised way is perhaps the new experiment in the Indian Railways,” a senior ECoR officer said.