 "BSP to roll world's longest single piece rail")
The steel plant located about 40 km from the state capital of Chhattisgarh is the sole supplier of rail to the Indian Railways. The company now plans to make a major milestone in the rail it has been rolling out from its facility.
"The new universal rail mill will produce world's longest single piece rail of 135 meter as rolled length and 130 meters finished length," a company spokesperson told Business Standard. The mill will also be world's largest in terms of its rated capacity of 1.2 million tonne per annum (mtpa), he added.
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At present, BSP is producing 65 meter single piece rail. The rails are welded to 130 or 260 m as per the order with the modern machine supplied by ESAB, Sweden. Concerns of safety and economy of operations have however necessitated railroads the world over to switch to long rails with very few weld joints.
The longer the length of the rail, the lesser is the number of welds per kilometer length.
The commuter enjoys a safe and bump-less-ride and the railroad company saves on track life and maintenance. The BSP had in fact established long rail production facilities in 2004 at a cost of Rs 400 crore to cater to the demand for long rails from Indian Railways.
The long rail complex produces rails upto 80 meter length and welded rail panels of upto 260 meter lengths.
The Rs 1174 crore new rail mill in BSP would create a history. The project is likely to be completed by the end of the current financial year. The facility will be coming up with state of the art facilities under the modernization and expansion programme of the BSP.
On completion, the capacity of the BSP will enhance to 7 mtpa. The finished rails will be with superior surface finish and with close tolerances as per National and International standards.
The mill complex is a unique production facility of its own type coming up in the country, the spokesperson said. Besides length and capacity, the upcoming mill has several special features like universal rolling from four directions for better structure, profile, tolerance and finish.