Southern Railway has registered substantial increase in freight loading and revenue generated during the period from April 2021 – March 2022. Southern Railway endeavoured to keep the supply chain intact registering steady growth in both freight loading and revenue generation.
Southern Railway loaded 30.56 Million Tonnes of originating Freight during financial year ( 2021-22), registering a growth of 14% in comparison to the last financial year 2020-21 which stood at 26.84 Million Tonnes.
There is also a rise of 27% in originating freight revenue during the financial year 2021-22 compared to that of 2020-21. The revenue generation from originating freight loading is Rs 2744 crores in 2021-22 as against Rs.2162 crores in 2020-21. Besides, the originating freight revenue is 2% higher than Railway Board’s target for 2021-22.
The main commodities of freight loading during this year 2021-22 were Coal, Iron & Steel, Cement, Fertilizer, Petroleum Products and Container Traffic. Notably, Southern Railway loaded 13.5 Million Metric Tonnes of Coal in 3305 rakes in 2021-22 registering an increase of 31% over the previous year. Besides, 0.45 Million Metric Tonnes of Iron & Steel, 2.08 Million Metric Tonnes of Cement, 2.8 million metric tones of indigenous fertilizers, 4.09 Million metric tonnes of POL and 1.99 million tonnes of Food grains loaded during 2021-22 also registered substantial increase in volume compared to 2020-21.
Automobile rakes
Due to increased demand from Automobile customers from Northern & North Eastern destinations, Automobile loading increased in 2021-22 with 774 rakes/0.65 Million Metric Tonnes loading which is 56% more than 2020-21 which was 544 rakes with the tonnage of 0.42 MMT.
A record loading of 87 rakes were done during July’21 which is ever highest Automobile rakes loading in the history of Southern Railway.
Due to substantial increase of Automobile loading, Southern Railway recorded 44% growth in earnings which stood at Rs.189.05 Crores compared to 2020-21 which was Rs.134.63 Crores.
Business Development Units
In a bid to double the freight volume by 2024 and attract road traffic, the Ministry of Railways set up Business Development Units (BDUs) at all zonal and divisional levels in July 2020. Southern Railway’s BDU effort has yielded significant results in diversifying its freight basket.
Southern Railway has registered an incremental traffic of Rs.2.19 Million Metric Tonnes registering earnings of Rs.190 Crores from new commodities captured during April-October of FY 2021-22. The sustained efforts of Divisional BDUs have helped capture new traffic such as Automobile, Gypsum, construction Machineries, Carbon Black Feed Stock, Edible Oil in Tank wagons, Laterite, Paddy, Caustic Soda in Containers, Steel Coils, Granulated Copper Slags, Cement, Sugar, Petcoke, Charcoal, Soyabean extracts, Pulses, Limestone, Clinker, Super Phosphate, Harvester Machines, Power Tilers, Tractors to Benepole, Bauxite Ore, Cement, Clinker, Mosquito nets etc.
Speed of Goods trains
Various initiatives taken to improve average speed of goods trains to 50KMPH for all over Southern Railway in order to improve wagon turn around for giving quick transit of loads/empties to freight customers according to their demands. The average speed of goods train in Southern Railway, previously 28 KMPH in 2019-20, now it has been improved to 46 KMPH in 2020-21. As an further improvement, the freight trains running in Southern Railway presently achieved the average speed of 49.4 Kmph (April-March’22) as a new milestone.
Oxygen specials
During our Nation’s Pandemic crisis situation due to Covid-19 at beginningof this FY 21-22, Southern Railway transported Liquid medical Oxygen through Container wagons to serve the nation. The Zone received 95 rakes carrying 7780 tons of Oxygen from various destinations from all over our country to the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
