Grain Trains

The Indian Railways has introduced innovative ideas to ensure continuous supply of food grains in times of the COVID-19 crisis and its accompanying lockdown conditions.

Annapoorna Trains

The Annapoorna trains are freight trains that help in transporting food grains and other essential goods. They are 5,000 tonnes super heavy trains that can haul up to 80 rakes. 25 such trains were operated by the Northern Railways in the first half of April which transported a record 3.2 million tonnes of food grains.

Jai Kisan Trains

The Jai Kisan trains are being operated by the Southern Railways. These are special freight trains for transporting food grains. In this concept, 2 freight trains loaded at different stations are joined together at the nearest junction point and then run till the common junction point of destination station.

Advantages

• A conventional freight train with 42 wagons can transport about 2,600 tonnes of food grains. The new concept trains (Jai Kisan) can transport 84 wagons bearing 5,200 tonnes of grains.
• As passenger trains operation has been suspended, path availability has been improved for plying grain trains.
• Journey time for the freight trains have been reduced by using the wagons’ clubbing idea.
• Speedy transportation has been achieved by using an average speed of 44kmph.