Railways' LHB Coaches Provide More Safety, Speed, Seating Capacity To Passengers

New Delhi: In a bid to tackle the growing passenger flow, the railways will augment Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches with many safety features and capacity for providing a comfortable journey to the travellers. These coaches have Lightweight design which improves its speed, more seating capacity, anti-climbing arrangement, air suspension (secondary) with failure indication system, less corrosive shell as compared to the conventional ICF coaches.

Elaborating the safety features, a senior officer of Integral Coach Factory (ICF) Chennai told ETV Bharat, “The replacing the conventional ICF coaches with LHB coaches makes a better move in the railway development. LHB coaches are designed to offer enhanced safety features including an anti-telescopic structure that prevents serious damage in case of collision. And these coaches will have around 80 seating capacity. However, ICF coaches have only 72 seating facilities. This increases at least 8 more seating capacity in a coach.”

Currently, there has been a huge passenger rush in general and sleeper class coaches travel from one place to another and people don’t get proper conformed tickets so they have to face many difficulties but once these new coaches are added in the trains, travellers will get some relief.

Talking on adding extra coaches, Shashikant Tripathi, Chief Public Relation Officer, North Central Railway told ETV Bharat, “Adding extra coaches with regular trains will definitely help passengers to get more options for travel. But a length of 22 coaches will be added in a train because most of the platforms are built to halt 22 coaches. If the railway will add more coaches then passengers will have to face inconvenience to get in and out in trains from the extreme end of the platform. So the railway has limitations to add coaches because of the platform’s size.”

The railway has to increase not only coaches but trains also to accommodate more and more passengers especially during the festival, summer, and winter seasons, railway officials said.

These LHB coaches have a strong coupling system which provides train more safety especially during any untoward incident or collision that prevents climbing from one bogie to another. Travellers can also experience greater comfort due to advanced suspension systems, ensuring a smoother journey, and these are capable of operating at higher speeds which help to reduce travel time, and most importantly these coaches are spacious for passengers. Earlier, it has been noticed that during the collision, several bogies climbed each other which caused more damage to trains as well as passengers, railway officials informed.

As per railways, the occupancy pattern of trains is not uniform throughout the year and it varies over lean and peak periods. During peak rush periods the occupancy of the trains especially on popular routes remains full whereas during lean periods and on less popular routes, there is sub optimal utilization. Traffic patterns of the trains running on railways are monitored on a regular basis and to cater to additional demand, load of existing trains are augmented, special trains are run, new trains are introduced, and frequency of existing trains is increased subject to operational feasibility.

What Railway says:

As railways informed Parliament, Railways has proliferated technologically superior LHB coaches with better riding, improved aesthetics and features like Lightweight design, Anti climbing arrangement, Air suspension (Secondary) with failure indication system, less corrosive shell as compared to the conventional ICF coaches. The production of LHB coaches has continually increased during the years and more than 43495 LHB coaches have been manufactured till December 2024. Further, all ICF rakes are planned to be replaced with LHB rakes in phases. Besides, Railways has also introduced Vande Bharat and Amrit Bharat trains with enhanced safety features and modern passenger amenities.

What Railway Minister says:

Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, in the on-going budget session in Parliament, informed about the steps being taken to provide more accommodation for the passengers using General and non-AC Sleeper Coaches. He touched upon the extant policy regarding composition of Mail/ Express trains provided for 12 General Class and Sleeper Class non-AC coaches and 8 AC-Coaches, in a train of 22 coaches.

Integral Coach Factory, Chennai:

For the year 2024-25, ICF has successfully rolled out 3007 coaches, an increase from 2829 last year. Out of 3007 coaches, a remarkable 1169 are Distributed Power Rolling Stock (DPRS) coaches, which include Vande Bharat Sleeper, Vande Bharat Chair Car, EMU and MEMU, the remaining 1,838 are LBH coaches.

What the data says:

To accommodate more passengers in unreserved coaches, about 1,200 General Class coaches have been attached in the Mail /Express trains with LHB coaches during the current financial year 2024-25. In view of increased demand of the passengers travelling by Non-AC coaches, railway has planned to manufacture 17,000 General Class/Sleeper Class Coaches. In addition to the various types of regular trains, Indian Railways also operates Special train services during festivals, holidays, etc. to cater to the extra needs of passengers.

Regarding the current status of production of Vande Bharat Sleeper and Amrit Bharat coaches and steps being taken to increase production of these coaches, the ministry has stated as under The first rake of Vande Bharat Sleeper Rake has been manufactured, and trials have also been completed. Currently, the rake is undergoing final commissioning at ICF, Chennai. The first rake of Amrit Bharat 2.0 has been manufactured and will go for trials/testing before putting it in commercial services. After successful trials and commissioning of first prototype rakes of Vande Bharat Sleeper and Amrit Bharat 2.0, series production of these rakes will be done for which manufacturing plans are already in place.

Coaches:

Currently, there are about 79,000 coaches being utilized for running train services, General and Non-AC sleeper (56,000) around 70 percent of total, AC coaches (23,000).

Additional Coaches:

To generate additional accommodation for different segments of passengers, additional coaches were also added to existing trains on a permanent and temporary basis. Additional coaches were attached on a permanent basis during the last two years are 2024-25 (till February 25) (983), and 2023-24 (872).