Wagons
The Indian Railways provided approx. 14349 dedicated container wagons to CONCOR for moving containers. These were supplemented over a period of time by certain over-age rolling stock modified for container carriage. These wagons, however were technologically dated, and unable to provide the kind of transits and reliability that state-of-the-art inter-modal services required. CONCOR therefore initiated procurement action for state-of-the-art, high-speedbogie low height container flat-wagons (type BLC) in service. Over 12008 BLC wagons have been procured by CONCOR and inducted in service so far.
In the new BLC type wagons, the increased length (new rakes have 45 BLCs per train) results in an increased payload per train. These wagons are also equipped with superior characteristics such as automatic twist locks, low beds through reduced wheel diameter, slack-less draw bars etc. The wagons are designed to run at 100 km/h, and have already revolutionized train transits between hinterland terminals and Mumbai gateway terminals of JNPT/NSICT. The reduced transit and turn round enhances earning potential while the negligible en-route detachments improve service reliability.
The main technical features of the new BLC Wagons are as follows:- Speed-100 kmph
- Low wheel diameter to permit
- Transportation of high cube containers at maximum speed
- Slackless draw bars
- Automatic twist locks (ATLs) and load sensing device (LSD).
- Anti-Pilferage device
- 90 teu's per train
A total of 1005 longer high speed bogie low height container flats (type BLL) capable of transporting of 20', 22', 40' & 45' domestic containers have also been inducted in service. These have similar features viz. Retractable Anchor Locks, LSD etc. as BLC wagons.
During the period 1999 to 2001 CONCOR also acquired from Indian Railway 1357 BFKI type of container flats as a strategic move to control all dedicated container rolling stock. These have subsequently been upgraded and retrofitted with air brakes to improve their reliability and transit performance and are now designated as BFKN wagons. These wagons are mostly deployed in dedicated domestic CONTRACK circuits.
The present size of the wagon fleet owned by CONCOR's network is approximately 13998 wagons.