Last leg of Western Freight Corridor likely to be operational by month end

NEW DELHI: The last leg of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) — a 102-km stretch from Vaitarna–JNPT in Maharashtra — is slated for completion and train operations will start by the month end, railway officials have said. With this, the entire 1,506-km WDFC will become functional.

The entire 1,337-km Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) connecting Sonnagar in West Bengal to Sahnewal in Punjab is already operational. Overall, around 96.4% of the two corridors have been completed. The average freight train speed on the two dedicated corridors is over 50 kmph, which is double the speed of cargo trains on the railway network.

Given the completion of the two freight corridors, railways has started fine-tuning the plan for the new 2,150-km Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) connecting Dankuni in West Bengal to Surat in Gujarat, which will pass through six states — Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra and West Bengal — and 32 districts. The project for moving high-capacity bulk corridor trains was announced in this Budget.

The new corridor will be integrated with the Indian Railways network at 29 stations and the maximum design speed of the corridor will be 100 kmph.
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