Coming up: Rajdhani on CNG

Days are not far when Rajdhani and August Kranti trains of the Indian Railways will be running on locomotives using CNG-diesel mix as fuel.

Following the successful run on short routes in Delhi, the Railways and its CNG supplier, Indraprastha Gas, are now considering longer routes for the conversion.

The Railways has sanctioned 20 CNG-based trains for the year 2007 and by end of this year it plans to ply seven trains on shorter routes, RM Gupta, director, Indraprastha Gas told the Business Standard.

Currently, the CNG-diesel loco is running on the Delhi-Rohtak-Shyamli route. Besides Indraprastha Gas, GAIL also supplies CNG to the Railways.

In fact, the Railways has already embarked on trial run of its ambitious plan and efforts are being made to design a separate carriage to store CNG for the engine.

The Railways has started conducting stationary trials for the mainline locomotives, confirmed a senior Northern Railway official, who did not want to be named.

The main hurdle is to have the CNG-filling stations on the rail route, said Gupta, adding the present 200-km-long route had CNG filling arrangement and the stock yard in Delhi so at the end of the day loco returns to Delhi for refilling for the next run.

At present, train uses 50 per cent diesel and CNG as fuel to run the train. The Delhi-Ghaziabad line is expected to be the next route to be converted.

For the remaining six destinations, the Northern Railway is scouting for places which are not far from Delhi to refill the locomotive.

When pointed out the availability of CNG in western states like Gujarat and Maharashtra, Gupta said, "We are open to any such possibility."

Though the Railways has agreed to convert 20 trains on CNG, officials are skeptical about the availability of CNG.