June 14, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1428

RAWALPINDI, June 13: Pakistan Railways is working on a plan to enhance its technological capability in manufacturing passenger coaches and it will set up a new factory where components made of glass-reinforced plastic would be fabricated.

The new factory, to be located in Rawalpindi, would be part of the Railway Carriage Factory where complete passenger coaches were being built with Chinese technology.

The federal minister for Railways, Shaikh Rashid Ahmad, who visited the Carriage Factory in Rawalpindi on Wednesday for carrying out assessment of the new factory, said the proposed factory would have the latest machinery and latest Belgian technology being made available at a grant of 10 million Euro.

The minister said the proposed factory would enable Pakistan Railways to move a step towards achieving self-sufficiency in the manufacturing of complete railway coaches in the country. “We want self-sufficiency of such a high standard that we should not import even nuts and bolts,” the minister told workers of the Carriage Factory, who expressed gratitude over increase in their salaries.

He also announced a special honorarium of Rs1,000 for all workers of the factory.

He regretted that though Pakistan had produced a nuclear bomb, it could not build railway engines on its own, but hoped this would be achieved soon.

The application of glass reinforced plastic in railways will enhance train speeds warranting lighter rolling stock; lower energy consumption; vibration dampening resulting in lower noise levels; improved passenger comfort; lower operating and maintenance cost; longer service life and improved life-cycle; prevention of pilferage of recyclable metal parts; and minimum negative environmental impact.

This technology was originally developed for the aerospace industry, is being used more because of its excellent specific properties. The transportation industry is increasingly reliant on composite materials. To achieve extraordinary advances, the transportation industry requires materials that are lighter, stronger, safer and more affordable than conventional materials.

They are increasingly being used in the railway industry worldwide where the resulting performance improvements are significant. For a mass transit system, lighter bodied coaches were instrumental for achieving higher speed.

The Carriage Factory has rehabilitated and modernised 925 passenger coaches over the last few years. A new project to rehabilitate 400 coaches has already been started. The majority of coaches in the fleet were over-aged and liable to be scrapped but their rehabilitation has given them a fresh lease of 15 years in serviceable life. The project was completed at the Carriage Factory in February this year at a cost of Rs2.145 billion.

Official sources told Dawn that Pakistan Railways was procuring 40 coaches in CBU (completely built up) units and 110 coaches in CKD (completely knocked-down) condition to be manufactured in the factory. Tenders for 150 coaches, costing Rs5.977 billion with foreign exchange component of Rs3.966 billion, were being evaluated by the ministry of railways.