SCR keeps passenger trains running, hauls record coal

HYDERABAD

South Central Railway (SCR) has not only managed to keep all the passenger trains incuding the Summer Specials running this season, but also got a record amount of coal and other goods transported in April, according to senior railway officials on Tuesday.

About 10.495 MTs of total freight loading has been done last month, which is a good 10% more than last year and this haulage has been rising consistently in the last five years from 8.08 MTs in April 2017 to 9.97 MTs in 2018, slightly low at 9.56 MTs in 2019, pandemic impact in 2020 with only 4.81 MTs which went up to 9.53 MTs in 2021.

The major share of the freight movement is coal, where 5.273 MTs was loaded registering 13.1% growth when compared to the previous year. Other major contributors to loading are cement (3.016 MTs), foodgrains (0.400 MTs), fertilizers (0.558 MTs), containers (0.185 MTs) and other goods (1.063 MTs.), they said.

Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) is the primary source for the coal in this zone and senior officials insist there hasn’t been even a “single instance” of Railways not being able to supply rakes when the firm wanted to transport coal as there is a particular focus on it.

In fact, while the total coal loading had increased across the zone, there has not been much difference this April and last year in the same period. If it was 3.734 MTs in April 2021, this year it has been 3.757 MTs loaded in April 2022 from SCCL. Dornakal-Bhadrachalam-Manugur sections is the most busy rail section followed by the Ramagundam-Mancherial-Mandamarri section for loading from the company mines.

About 25-30 rakes exclusively deal with coal movement daily with about 58-60 open wagons carrying 4,000 tonnes per train each to the thermal stations within Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and other neighbhouring states, they said.

While taking care of increasing demand from the freight including coal, SCR has re-introduced 17 passenger train services and seven MMTS suburban services to take the process of normalisation of coaching train services to the pre-COVID levels unlike other zones across the country.