The South Eastern Railway (SER) officials have finally received a green light from the Railway Board to substitute the 20-year-old conventional coaches of 2 luxury trains with Linke Holfmann Bush (LHB) coaches. These were developed by a popular German company with similar name, and now also mass-produced at the rail coach manufacturing works in Kapurthala, Punjab.
The divisional railway manager, Ranchi, Gajanan Mallya, stated the new coaches will certainly benefit the 2,500-odd travellers using the Ranchi-Howrah Shatabdi Express and Ranchi-Delhi Rajdhani Express trains. According to Mallya, the division had pursued authorisation for LHB coaches. Each of these is worth up to Rs 2 crore and both trains will have about twenty two bogies each. This was conformed last year according to a report by The Telegraph.
Gajanan Mallya also said that the railway division has now been promised around coaches for both Rajdhani as well as Shatabdi. He also confirmed that the 2 trains will certainly boast the new and much safer bogies before the end of this financial year.
The LHB coaches are now planned in a fashion to facilitate for an effective speed of up to 160kmph. It is also tested up to 180kmph. The coaches are almost 23.54 metres long and 3.24 metres wide. This also results in higher capacity of passenger as compared to conventional coaches. These recently introduced bogies are known to be completely 'anti-telescopic'. This indicates that they do not topple over despite the fact that the train derails or suffers a collision.
The all-new enhanced suspension system guarantees superior riding comfort. Apart from this facility, the microprocessor is am al-in-all controlled high-capacity AC system. It works towards providing passengers cooling as per the seasonal demands. In short, optimum level of cooling is provided as and when needed.