19th July, 2002
Ministry of Railways  


RAILWAYS TO PRODUCE SPECIAL BOGIES


RAJYA SABHA

Railways are in the process of formulating a scheme to manufacture special type of bogies, keeping in view the security of passengers during accidents. Coach interiors and fittings will be modified to prevent injury to passengers during normal use and in case of accidents. Coach body shall be redesigned to absorb major part of impact in case of serious accidents in non-passenger-carrying areas thereby, minimizing risk of serious injuries to passengers inside the coach.

Modification for improvement to the interiors have also been adopted for incorporating in new coaches and also for retrofitment in the existing coaches. Such modified coaches will be inducted gradually into the fleet as a continuous process. No target can be assigned for complete implementation of these modifications at this stage. Also ,development of crashworthy design of coach bodies is in a preliminary stage. It is not practicable to assign any target for induction of such coaches or number of coaches to be manufactured at this stage.

The following steps have been taken by the railway to improve crashworthiness of coaches:

    • An inter-Railway coach competition was held to generate innovative ideas for improvement of coach interiors and fittings to make them injury free. Based on short listed innovations, 51 modifications have been adopted for incorporating on new coaches and retrofitment on existing ones.
    • A project has been initiated to develop crashworthy coach bodies through computer simulation which will be validated by actual crash tests.
    • Design of coach body for change over from screw coupling to center buffer type coupler with anti climbing feature to prevent coaches from riding on one another in case of accidents is also being developed for new coaches.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways , Shri Bandaru Dattatraya in a written reply to a question by Shri Jhumuk Lal Bhendia in Rajya Sabha today.