Kolkata: The Eastern Railway (ER) has sought five additional air-conditioned rakes to expand suburban AC services, general manager Milind Deouskar said on the sidelines of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) organised “3rd India Rail Forum: The Future Express” in Kolkata on Friday.
He said the new rakes, once allotted, could be deployed on routes such as Howrah–Burdwan and Howrah–Bandel after a survey. At present, AC services run on multiple routes with two rakes in Sealdah Division. “Let the rakes come. We will introduce more services after doing a proper survey,” he said.
On the punctuality problem in Howrah division, Deouskar pointed to mixed-traffic pressure. “This chord line carries many freight trains from South Eastern Railway and from Batanagar into Howrah division. These freight trains are a major challenge,” he said.
He said the sanctioned fourth line between Chandanpur and Shaktigarh would create dedicated suburban paths similar to Sealdah, where separate tracks and automatic signalling support punctuality above 90 percent across 900 daily services. Infrastructure is being developed at Kolkata station to create more freight lines, and some Howrah-maintained trains will be shifted to Jamalpur and Asansol.
This will create space to start new long-distance trains from Howrah towards Bihar, Delhi, Raxaul, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai. At the forum, themed “Greening the Rails, Powering the Nations”, speakers outlined priorities, including lowering logistics costs, enhancing freight efficiency, accelerating green energy adoption and expanding mass rapid transit systems to meet national 2030, 2040 and Viksit Bharat 2047 goals. In his address, Deouskar said greening rail transport must begin with reassessing freight patterns.
Rathendra Raman, IRTS and chairman of Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, stressed the synergy between ports and railways for national logistics transformation, and emphasised shifting freight from road to rail and inland waterways for greener logistics.
RVNL chief project manager Vipin Kumar said mass transit and multimodal connectivity are key to meeting national growth targets. Chairman of ICC National Expert Committee – Railways and deputy managing director of Jupiter Wagons Ltd, Vikash Lohia, said the greening roadmap rests on deepening electrification.