What is the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC)?

July 18, 2019, 1:12 PM
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The Dedicated Freight Corridor is a project for new railway lines exclusively for carrying freight isolated from normal IR traffic and passenger trains. Conceived in 2004-2005, planning began in 2006, and in 2007 initial proposals have been drawn up. The entire DFC project will include 2,700km or so of exclusive freight lines (new construction), and about 5,000km of feeder lines that will include some new construction and many existing lines that will be upgraded.

In the first phase, the Western Corridor will connect the Jawaharlal Nehru Port to New Delhi via Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Jaipur, and Rewari and further on to Tughlakabad and Dadri. There will also be a link between Dadri and Khurja, and feeder routes connecting other ports of Gujarat. There will also be four logistic terminals, one each near New Delhi, Jaipur, Ahemdabad, and Vadodara. The Western Corridor is expected to carry mainly container traffic. The Western Corridor is expected to be unelectrified, using diesel traction.

The Eastern Corridor is expected to connect Ludhiana to Sonnagar via Ambala, Saharanpur, Khurja, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Mughalsarai. The primary feeder routes for this will be from Sonnagar to Durgapur via Gomoh, Sonnagar to Tatanagar via Garhwa Road, and Barkakana to Bokaro via Chandrapura. Eventually the Eastern Corridor will be extended to Dankuni, near Kolkata, where there will be a new freight terminal, and to a new (to be built) deep-water port off the coast of West Bengal near Kolkata, with a total length of 1,805km. The Eastern corridor will be single line on the Ludhiana-Khurja portion (426km) and double line on the remaining portions. The Eastern Corridor is expected to carry more heavy mineral traffic and less container traffic. The Eastern Corridor is expected to be electrified. Work on the Eastern Corridor was inaugurated on Feb. 10, 2009, with construction commencing on a 105km section between New Ganjkhwaja near Mughalsarai to New Karwandia near Sonnagar.

It is expected that trains running on the DFC lines will be up to 1.5km long (100 wagon rakes) and running at up to 100km/h. Double-stacking of containers is expected to be the rule, especially on the Western Corridor which will be unelectrified. Transit time for freight between Mumbai and New Delhi is xpected to drop to about 36 hours from the current 60 hours. In the busiest freight routes such as Ahmedabad – Marwar, the number of freight trains running is expected to rise from 15 each way each day (currently) to 72 each way; between JNP and Vadodara the increase will be from 9 to 49. Expected completion time for the first phase of the DFC project (the routes described above) is around 5-7 years (i.e., completion by 2012-2014). RITES is the agency carrying out the initial feasibility studies for the project.

Source – IFRCA.org

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