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In a groundbreaking achievement, Indian Railways has unveiled 'Rudrastra', the longest freight train in the nation's history and the largest in Asia. Spanning an astonishing 4.5 km with 354 wagons, this steel behemoth was powered by seven locomotives and loaded with over 25,000 tonnes of goods. Operated by the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Division of East Central Railway, Rudrastra's trial run covered 209 km from Ganjkhwaja in Uttar Pradesh to Garhwa in Jharkhand in just over five hours. This new operational experiment, coupling six box rakes for faster loading and transport, is set to revolutionize freight movement by saving both time and resources. With its unmatched capacity, Rudrastra strengthens India's position in global freight innovation and marks a new chapter in railway engineering excellence.#indianrailways #rudrastra #longesttrain #freighttrain #asiabiggesttrain #railwayachievement #eastcentralrailway #indianengineering #recordbreakingtrain #indianfreight #trainspotting #railfans #indianinfrastructure #transportinnovation #indianews #railwayrecord #megatrain #trainlovers #railwaydevelopment #railwaynews #breakingnews #trending #trendingnow #toi #bharat #toibharat #indianews
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The Hindu
5 hours ago
- The Hindu
Arebetta holds key to launch of Vande Bharat on Bengaluru-Mangaluru route
Indian Railways will be able to operate at least two more pairs of passenger trains upon commissioning of a crossing station at Arebetta on the Sakleshpur-Subrahmanya Road ghat section of the Hassan-Mangaluru railway line. Thus, the South Western Railway (SWR) would be able to operate the much-sought-after Vande Bharat Express between Bengaluru and coastal Karnataka upon commissioning of the crossing station. At present, the ghat section handles eight pairs of trains in a 24-hour window, including five passenger trains: Bengaluru-Kannur Bengaluru-Karwar Bengaluru-Murdeshwar Vijayapura-Mangaluru Central Yeshwantpur-Mangaluru Junction/Karwar Express (day trains) The day services are suspended till November 1 to facilitate railway electrification work on the 55-km ghat section. Sources in SWR told The Hindu that Arebetta, located in between Shiribagilu and Yadakumari, does not have enough length to facilitate crossing of freight trains that require at least 750-metre-long loop line. With the available space, a loop line of about 600 metres could be constructed to cater to coaching trains, sources said. The crossing station is being established in view of the increasing demand to operate more passenger trains, including the Vande Bharat Express, between Bengaluru and the coast, sources said. Who will bear the cost Railway Minister Ashwinin Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha recently that Hassan-Mangalore Rail Development Corporation (HMRDC) would bear the cost of developing Arebetta Crossing Station. In his reply to an unstarred question by Udupi-Chikkamagalru MP Kota Srinivas Poojary, the Minister said, 'It has been decided to develop Arebetta Railway Station as a Crossing Station.' Mr. Poojary has constantly been following up with the Railway Ministry regarding developing Arebetta station as a Crossing Station to enhance train handling capacity on the ghat section. Railway electrification update Mr. Vaishnaw said railway electrification was complete on the Subrahmanya Road-Shiribagilu (14 km) stretch and Sakleshpur-Donigal (9 km) stretch on the Subrahmaya Road-Sakleshpur ghat section (55 km). Work is underway in the remaining stretch — Shiribagilu-Donigal (32 km). Completion electrification work depends on various factors, including forest clearance, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearance by various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of the area.
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Time of India
When Made-in-India engines alarmed the British
Why India-built engines were banned by the British Live Events How railways worked as an extractive instrument (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The Indian Railways are often romanticised as a colonial gift, an infrastructure legacy that unified a fragmented land and modernised the subcontinent. However, this narrative masks the deeper colonial motives behind their construction. Far from being a benevolent gesture, the British-built railways were a strategic tool of economic exploitation, crafted to serve imperial interests. Though the benefits that did accrue to Indians were incidental or emerged post-Independence, when the infrastructure was repurposed for national development, the British colonial railway system was primarily designed to extract resources, facilitate control and maximize profit for the British Empire, often at the expense of Indian industry and self-sufficiency.A related myth is that India may not have got its own railways if not for the British colonial regime, though railways did reach many countries which were not colonised by Europeans. A little-known historical fact points at the fact that railways may have been invented in England, but India could have indigenised the technology much earlier, and made it cheaper railway workshops in Jamalpur in Bengal and Ajmer in Rajputana were established in 1862 to maintain the trains. The British were surprised when their Indian mechanics became so adept that in 1878 they started designing and building their own locomotives, writes Shashi Tharoor in his book "Inglorious Empire"."Their success increasingly alarmed the British, since the Indian locomotives were just as good, and a great deal cheaper, than the British-made ones. In 1912, therefore, the British passed an act of parliament explicitly making it impossible for Indian workshops to design and manufacture locomotives. Between 1854 and 1947, India imported around 14,400 locomotives from England, and another 3,000 from Canada, the US and Germany, but made none in India after 1912. After independence, 35 years later, the old technical knowledge was so completely lost to India that the Indian Railways had to go cap-in-hand to the British to guide them on setting up a locomotive factory in India again," writes primary aim of the British railway network was not to develop India but to integrate it into the global capitalist economy as a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of British manufactured goods. Railways were constructed to connect resource-rich interiors—coal mines in Bengal, cotton fields in Maharashtra, jute plantations in Bengal, and opium-growing regions in Bihar—to port cities like Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), and Madras (Chennai). These ports served as conduits for shipping raw materials to British railway system in India was built largely with British capital, under a system that virtually guaranteed profits to British investors, while transferring the financial risks to Indian taxpayers. Under the 'guaranteed return' system, British companies were promised a 5% return on their investment, regardless of the railway's actual profitability. If earnings fell short, the Indian government made up the difference using tax revenue, effectively subsidising British investors."The railways were first conceived of by the East India Company, like everything else in that firm's calculations, for its own benefit," Tharoor writes. "Governor General Lord Hardinge argued in 1843 that the railways would be beneficial 'to the commerce, government and military control of the country'. In their very conception and construction, the Indian railways were a colonial scam."While the colonial railways also played a critical role in enabling British control of India, strengthening bureaucratic control over vast territories and deepening the reach of imperial authority, the railways were embedded in a system of racial and class segregation."And, of course, racism reigned; though whites-only compartments were soon done away with on grounds of economic viability, Indians found the available affordable space grossly inadequate for their numbers. (A marvellous post-independence cartoon captured the situation perfectly: it showed an overcrowded train, with people hanging off it, clinging to the windows, squatting perilously on the roof, and spilling out of their third-class compartments, while two Britons in sola topis sit in an empty first-class compartment saying to each other, 'My dear chap, there's nobody on this train!')," writes Tharoor."Nor were Indians employed in the railways," he writes. "The prevailing view was that the railways would have to be staffed almost exclusively by Europeans to 'protect investments'. This was especially true of signalmen, and those who operated and repaired the steam trains, but the policy was extended to the absurd level that even in the early 20th century all the key employees, from directors of the Railway Board to ticket-collectors, were white men – whose salaries and benefits were also paid at European, not Indian, levels and largely repatriated back to England."While the British did build a vast railway network in India, it was not an altruistic endeavor. The railways were a quintessential tool of imperial exploitation, designed to extract, control, and profit, rather than to develop, empower, or unify. The myth of the colonial railway as a gift to India is a narrative that needs critical re-examination. It is only by confronting these colonial legacies one can appreciate the resilience of post-colonial nations in turning instruments of oppression into tools of progress.
News18
7 hours ago
- News18
Railways To Get 600 Coaches With Modular Interiors, Bio-Toilets, CCTVs To Make Trains Safer, Quieter
'The 600 coaches tender is a part of a broader nationwide production push that focuses on the comfort of the passengers,' a Railway Ministry official said Within the next few months, Indian Railways will roll out 600 smarter LHB coaches featuring CCTV cameras, bio-toilets, modular interiors, and noise/vibration reduction technology for smoother and safer train journeys. Defence public sector undertaking Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) has bagged the Rs 1,888 crore order from the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) to manufacture, supply, testing, and commissioning of complete fully functional Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) coaches with the deadline of 15 months. 'The 600 coaches tender is a part of a broader nationwide production push that focuses on the comfort of the passengers," a Railway Ministry official explained. The tender was floated in April. The production will cover 400 LHB General Second Class coaches (day coaches) and 200 LHB Sleeper Class coaches. The BEML has to deliver prototype shells and coaches within six months of receiving the Letter of Acceptance (LoA). The new LHB coaches will offer modular interiors with improved durability and ease of maintenance. Each coach will be equipped with bio-toilets offering pressurized flushing systems for better hygiene and support environmental goals. Each coach will also offer mobile charging facilities, backed by a 10-hour battery backup for lights and fans to ensure uninterrupted services during power outages. The LHB coaches are a modern and safer alternative to the older ICF coaches. The ICF type of coaches have limitations in terms of speed potential, heavy corrosion, poor riding comfort and wearing of parts in the under gear. Indian Railways entered into a Transfer of Technology contract with Germany for production of LHB coaches. Their inception and mass production in Railways started in 2002 with the first LHB coach introduced in December 2003. Indian Railways stopped production of ICF coaches from April 2018 and shifted the focus to the production of LHB coaches. According to official government data, Indian Railways manufactured 7,134 coaches in 2024-25, a nine percent increase over the previous year's 6,541 coaches. Production was led by the ICF Chennai with 3,007 coaches, Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala with 2,102 coaches, and Modern Coach Factory (MCF), Rae Bareli with 2,025 coaches. LHB coaches, based on German technology, are manufactured in India by these three firms. In 2025-26, the ICF is aiming to touch production with 4,000 coaches, including those outsourced. Government data shows that since 2015, around 23,000 ICF coaches have already been replaced with LHB. This manufacturing boost aligns with BEML's broader expansion plans. On August 10, the foundation stone for another unit of BEML in Madhya Pradesh's Umaria was laid. 'Brahma' – with an estimated investment of Rs 1,800 crore—is expected to be a game changer for the country's rail and defence manufacturing capabilities as it will facilitate indigenous design, production, assembly, and testing of Vande Bharat trains, modern metro coaches, and critical defence equipment. It is expected to generate over 5,000 employment opportunities over the next five years. view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 12, 2025, 12:01 IST News india Railways To Get 600 Coaches With Modular Interiors, Bio-Toilets, CCTVs To Make Trains Safer, Quieter Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
